Tesla’s robot is a real robot now, not just a guy in a suit

Tesla CEO Elon Musk kicked off its Tesla AI Day 2022 with a quick level set on expectations — “we’ve come a long way” — and then stepped aside to allow the first iteration of its robot walk out onto the stage.

The robot wasn’t a human dressed in a robot costume like last year.  Instead, Tesla introduced a functioning robot, albeit with exposed cables and a bit wobbly, at its second annual event. According to Musk, it was the first time it was working without “any support, cranes, mechanical mechanisms or cables.”

Tesla Robot moving and waving

After a brief turn about the stage, the robot left the stage before the rest of the presentation continued, which included several short videos of the robot (now tethered for stability) carrying a box in an office, watering a plant and lifting a small piece of metal in the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.

The aim of the demo and ensuing presentation, in which a number of Tesla employees gave what can only be described as a bipedal robotics 101 course, was to show more progress. (After all, anything beyond a human in a costume could be considered progress). Instead, the event aimed to telegraph where Tesla is headed, shore up confidence in its trajectory and (hopefully) recruit the talent it needs to further the program.

Image Credits: Tesla robot specs display

Eventually, Musk said the first-gen prototype, which he referred to as Bumble C, will evolve into Optimus. This eventual robot will be able to walk efficiently and stay balanced, carry a 20-pound bag, use tools and have a precision grip for small robots. The Bumble C prototype is outfitted with 2.3 kilowatt hour battery pack, which one Tesla employee said was “perfect for about a full day’s worth of work.”

Some of the specs of the robot have changed since last year. For instance, the weigh of the bot has moved up from 125 pounds to 160 pounds.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Tesla bot roadshow, was the repeated reference and crossover with Tesla vehicles. The company said it is leveraging its energy products and using those components for the bot, including battery management. The supercomputer used in Tesla vehicles is also in the Tesla bot. And Tesla is tapping the hardware and software used in its advanced driver assistance system Autopilot for the bot as well. The Tesla bot is also equipped with wireless connectivity as well as audio support and hardware level security features, which the company said are “important to protect both the robot and the people around the robot.”

The big looming question is whether all of these efficiencies, once combined in the bot, will result in a scalable robot that works. Of course, Musk thinks it’s possible, going as far to say that he envisions the Optimus will be just $20,000.

Tesla’s robot is a real robot now, not just a guy in a suit by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/30/teslas-robot-is-a-real-robot-now-not-just-a-guy-in-a-suit/

ByteDance’s Pico debuts its Quest rival, but challenges remain

When ByteDance bought the Chinese VR headset maker Pico a year ago, the message it sent was clear: it was betting that the immersive device would be where future generations spend most of their time consuming digital content. It’s a marriage reminiscent of Meta’s acquisition of Oculus back in 2014, except the world is now in a different place with technological advances that make VR headsets cheaper, less laggy, and more comfortable to wear.

The TikTok parent has long aimed to compete in a market dominated by Oculus’s VR devices for consumers. When Meta launched Quest 2 in 2020, ByteDance worked on a confidential internal project to develop AR glasses, The Information reported. Pico’s product launch this week is a further indication of its ambition to challenge Quest, which has enjoyed roughly two-thirds of the global AR and VR market for the past two years.

The Pico 4, which starts at €429 (around $420 thanks to a strong dollar) for 128GB and ships to Europe, Japan, and South Korea aside from China, has received applause in the VR community. It weighs only 295 grams without the straps and can function as a standalone device but also be tethered to PCs for more advanced VR experiences. It uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor as Quest 2 does. 

“It’s inexpensive and good quality, with specs that can match Quest 2,” says Gavin Newton-Tanzer, host of mixed reality conference AWE Asia.

“Was impressed with the weight, comfort, LCD display, pancake lenses, color AR passthrough, and controllers. All it needs now are serious triple-A VR exclusives to distinguish itself from Meta to get gamers interested,” writes a VR content creator.

Merely “matching” Quest 2 specs doesn’t sound good enough given the latter came out two years ago and became an instant hit. Pico not only has a lot of catch-up to do on the technological front but also in terms of content and branding.

“Oculus’s content ecosystem is more established, providing a better understanding of what consumers want,” says Newton-Tanzer. Popular rhythm game Beat Saber, for instance, had generated $100 million in revenue on Oculus Quest by October 2021.

Here are the games that were announced at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase

Pico is facing a chicken-or-egg problem, the XR expert suggests. Its user base across product lines isn’t currently large enough that top-tier creators would be devoted to making games, videos, and other VR content exclusively for its platform. It reportedly sold 500,000 units last year, half of its target. In contrast, Quest 2 shipped 10 million units in the space of October 2020 and November 2021. But without premium content, Pico will have a hard time attracting users in a meaningful way.

The good news is Pico has established a strong foothold in China and doesn’t face much competition in the home market. Oculus doesn’t have an official presence in China, meaning users have to go through the hassle of ordering an overseas version, getting the Oculus app from a foreign app store, and accessing its global app ecosystem through a virtual private network as Meta’s servers are blocked in China.

The technological bifurcation could allow Pico time to test and learn in the home market before launching into the West at full steam. Expansion in the U.S. is already set in motion as ByteDance began building a team for Pico on the West Coast, according to Protocol, with a focus to attract talent in content, marketing, and R&D.

ByteDance-owned VR startup Pico strengthens ties with Qualcomm

ByteDance’s Pico debuts its Quest rival, but challenges remain by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/iOUZRkn
via IFTTT

ByteDance’s Pico debuts its Quest rival, but challenges remain

When ByteDance bought the Chinese VR headset maker Pico a year ago, the message it sent was clear: it was betting that the immersive device would be where future generations spend most of their time consuming digital content. It’s a marriage reminiscent of Meta’s acquisition of Oculus back in 2014, except the world is now in a different place with technological advances that make VR headsets cheaper, less laggy, and more comfortable to wear.

The TikTok parent has long aimed to compete in a market dominated by Oculus’s VR devices for consumers. When Meta launched Quest 2 in 2020, ByteDance worked on a confidential internal project to develop AR glasses, The Information reported. Pico’s product launch this week is a further indication of its ambition to challenge Quest, which has enjoyed roughly two-thirds of the global AR and VR market for the past two years.

The Pico 4, which starts at €429 (around $420 thanks to a strong dollar) for 128GB and ships to Europe, Japan, and South Korea aside from China, has received applause in the VR community. It weighs only 295 grams without the straps and can function as a standalone device but also be tethered to PCs for more advanced VR experiences. It uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor as Quest 2 does. 

“It’s inexpensive and good quality, with specs that can match Quest 2,” says Gavin Newton-Tanzer, host of mixed reality conference AWE Asia.

“Was impressed with the weight, comfort, LCD display, pancake lenses, color AR passthrough, and controllers. All it needs now are serious triple-A VR exclusives to distinguish itself from Meta to get gamers interested,” writes a VR content creator.

Merely “matching” Quest 2 specs doesn’t sound good enough given the latter came out two years ago and became an instant hit. Pico not only has a lot of catch-up to do on the technological front but also in terms of content and branding.

“Oculus’s content ecosystem is more established, providing a better understanding of what consumers want,” says Newton-Tanzer. Popular rhythm game Beat Saber, for instance, had generated $100 million in revenue on Oculus Quest by October 2021.

Here are the games that were announced at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase

Pico is facing a chicken-or-egg problem, the XR expert suggests. Its user base across product lines isn’t currently large enough that top-tier creators would be devoted to making games, videos, and other VR content exclusively for its platform. It reportedly sold 500,000 units last year, half of its target. In contrast, Quest 2 shipped 10 million units in the space of October 2020 and November 2021. But without premium content, Pico will have a hard time attracting users in a meaningful way.

The good news is Pico has established a strong foothold in China and doesn’t face much competition in the home market. Oculus doesn’t have an official presence in China, meaning users have to go through the hassle of ordering an overseas version, getting the Oculus app from a foreign app store, and accessing its global app ecosystem through a virtual private network as Meta’s servers are blocked in China.

The technological bifurcation could allow Pico time to test and learn in the home market before launching into the West at full steam. Expansion in the U.S. is already set in motion as ByteDance began building a team for Pico on the West Coast, according to Protocol, with a focus to attract talent in content, marketing, and R&D.

ByteDance-owned VR startup Pico strengthens ties with Qualcomm

ByteDance’s Pico debuts its Quest rival, but challenges remain by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/30/bytedance-vr-pico-meta-quest/

Daily Crunch: It’s AI day for Tesla, but we’re here for the cringey texts

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Happy Friday! We don’t know about you, but we are both ready for some R&R after ploughing through a wall of deep-cringe texts from the Musk/Twitter trial. We hope you get some, too, this weekend.

This afternoon, Tesla is running its second AI day. Last year’s was a hoot, and we have some predictions for what’s coming down the pipe today, too. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Under attack: Microsoft confirmed that it “is aware” of some attacks to its Exchange server. Carly is staying on top of the story and reports that there is “no immediate fix.”
• Eyeing that sweet capital: Manish has a scoop that Uniswap Labs, a decentralized exchange, is going after over $100 million in new funding.
• Stream on: YouTube TV is offering a new à la carte option that enables subscribers to purchase stand-alone networks without subscribing to the full channel lineup in its Base plan, Lauren reports.

Startups and VC

When insurtech company Metromile went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in February last year, it was valued at over $1 billion. A year and five months later, Lemonade acquired the company for less than $145 million. And yet, things aren’t as bleak as they might seem, Anna reports.

This year, 40% of the world’s population will play games, with total spending nearing $200 billion. The purveyors of web3 want a slice of this gargantuan market, Rita reports. She writes that criticisms of the first generation of crypto games have been well documented, so the question for developers now is what decentralized games should look like.

Let’s do a few more, shall we? Go on, then:

• Yeah, that didn’t work: Catherine reports that TestGrid is a “one-stop shop” for testing apps at scale.
• There’s a bit of a whiff about this: GV aims to help build a company that can sniff out disease, literally, reports Connie.
• A bitter pill: Natasha M reports that Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducted its fourth round of layoffs in 2022.
• To da moon: Natasha M and Kyle give us the biggest moonshots from 500 Global’s latest Demo Day .
• Ever so surprised: Ingrid reports that Everstores, an OpenStore-style D2C Shopify aggregator out of Europe, emerges from stealth with €18 million in funding.

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Image Credits: Warchi (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Some services are in such demand, it can insulate their providers against the vagaries of the market. During an economic downturn, consumers don’t cut back on pet food or toilet paper. Similarly, everyone needs some form of insurance.

Between 2016 and 2022, insurtech startups received around $43 billion in funding, and despite the downturn, most of the investors that reporter Anna Heim recently surveyed are still positive about the sector’s prospects:

• Martha Notaras, general partner, Brewer Lane Ventures
• David Wechsler, principal, OMERS Ventures
• Stephen Brittain and Rob Lumley, directors and co-founders, Insurtech Gateway
• Florian Graillot, founding partner, Astorya.vc
• Clarisse Lam, associate, NewAlpha Asset Management
• Hélène Falchier, partner, Portage Ventures
• Adam Blumencranz, partner, Distributed Ventures

“We are simply seeing a reality check happen,” said Wechsler. “Unfortunately, there are many companies that should not have raised as much as they did, or perhaps don’t have sustainable business models. These companies will struggle to survive.”

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Raising growth funding for robotics startups: Show, don’t tell: Tips for robotics startups raising a Series B during a downturn, by Jason Schoettler.
• Q3 was rough; here’s what Q4 holds in store (maybe): After a series of misfires in Q3, here’s what we expect for startups in Q4, by Anna and Alex.
• Bridging the gap: Tokenization is key to linking TradFi to the blockchain, by Jacquelyn.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

SoftBank has been doing some readjusting to company valuations lately, but the latest adjusting is happening with its own company. Kate reports that SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly laying off 30% of its workforce even as it considers a third fund.

Here are five more for you:

• Inside Elon’s texts: Amanda and Taylor dig into a document that surfaced that provides a look into the innermost workings of Elon Musk’s mind as he texts back and forth with “friends.” We put that in quotes because, well, you’ll see.
• Slimming down: At a Meta all-hands meeting, Mark Zuckerberg broke the news that it will freeze hiring and cut costs, Taylor reports.
• Taking on QVC: Amazon launched a livestream shopping site in India, Manish and Jagmeet write. The delivery giant said Amazon Live will run 15 livestreams a day.
• We on a mission: SpaceX and NASA are partnering to send a commercial crew to “boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope.” If it is successful, it will extend the telescope’s life span by as much as 20 years, Aria reports.
• What did we just watch?: Meta has a new feature called Make-A-Video that enables you to make videos out of text prompts. To quote Devin, “I just think it’s fascinating that however realistic these videos are in one sense, they’re all so bizarre and off-putting in others.” 

Daily Crunch: It’s AI day for Tesla, but we’re here for the cringey texts  by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/EluIXT3
via IFTTT

Daily Crunch: It’s AI day for Tesla, but we’re here for the cringey texts

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Happy Friday! We don’t know about you, but we are both ready for some R&R after ploughing through a wall of deep-cringe texts from the Musk/Twitter trial. We hope you get some, too, this weekend.

This afternoon, Tesla is running its second AI day. Last year’s was a hoot, and we have some predictions for what’s coming down the pipe today, too. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Under attack: Microsoft confirmed that it “is aware” of some attacks to its Exchange server. Carly is staying on top of the story and reports that there is “no immediate fix.”
• Eyeing that sweet capital: Manish has a scoop that Uniswap Labs, a decentralized exchange, is going after over $100 million in new funding.
• Stream on: YouTube TV is offering a new à la carte option that enables subscribers to purchase stand-alone networks without subscribing to the full channel lineup in its Base plan, Lauren reports.

Startups and VC

When insurtech company Metromile went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in February last year, it was valued at over $1 billion. A year and five months later, Lemonade acquired the company for less than $145 million. And yet, things aren’t as bleak as they might seem, Anna reports.

This year, 40% of the world’s population will play games, with total spending nearing $200 billion. The purveyors of web3 want a slice of this gargantuan market, Rita reports. She writes that criticisms of the first generation of crypto games have been well documented, so the question for developers now is what decentralized games should look like.

Let’s do a few more, shall we? Go on, then:

• Yeah, that didn’t work: Catherine reports that TestGrid is a “one-stop shop” for testing apps at scale.
• There’s a bit of a whiff about this: GV aims to help build a company that can sniff out disease, literally, reports Connie.
• A bitter pill: Natasha M reports that Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducted its fourth round of layoffs in 2022.
• To da moon: Natasha M and Kyle give us the biggest moonshots from 500 Global’s latest Demo Day .
• Ever so surprised: Ingrid reports that Everstores, an OpenStore-style D2C Shopify aggregator out of Europe, emerges from stealth with €18 million in funding.

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Image Credits: Warchi (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Some services are in such demand, it can insulate their providers against the vagaries of the market. During an economic downturn, consumers don’t cut back on pet food or toilet paper. Similarly, everyone needs some form of insurance.

Between 2016 and 2022, insurtech startups received around $43 billion in funding, and despite the downturn, most of the investors that reporter Anna Heim recently surveyed are still positive about the sector’s prospects:

• Martha Notaras, general partner, Brewer Lane Ventures
• David Wechsler, principal, OMERS Ventures
• Stephen Brittain and Rob Lumley, directors and co-founders, Insurtech Gateway
• Florian Graillot, founding partner, Astorya.vc
• Clarisse Lam, associate, NewAlpha Asset Management
• Hélène Falchier, partner, Portage Ventures
• Adam Blumencranz, partner, Distributed Ventures

“We are simply seeing a reality check happen,” said Wechsler. “Unfortunately, there are many companies that should not have raised as much as they did, or perhaps don’t have sustainable business models. These companies will struggle to survive.”

8 investors weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Raising growth funding for robotics startups: Show, don’t tell: Tips for robotics startups raising a Series B during a downturn, by Jason Schoettler.
• Q3 was rough; here’s what Q4 holds in store (maybe): After a series of misfires in Q3, here’s what we expect for startups in Q4, by Anna and Alex.
• Bridging the gap: Tokenization is key to linking TradFi to the blockchain, by Jacquelyn.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

SoftBank has been doing some readjusting to company valuations lately, but the latest adjusting is happening with its own company. Kate reports that SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly laying off 30% of its workforce even as it considers a third fund.

Here are five more for you:

• Inside Elon’s texts: Amanda and Taylor dig into a document that surfaced that provides a look into the innermost workings of Elon Musk’s mind as he texts back and forth with “friends.” We put that in quotes because, well, you’ll see.
• Slimming down: At a Meta all-hands meeting, Mark Zuckerberg broke the news that it will freeze hiring and cut costs, Taylor reports.
• Taking on QVC: Amazon launched a livestream shopping site in India, Manish and Jagmeet write. The delivery giant said Amazon Live will run 15 livestreams a day.
• We on a mission: SpaceX and NASA are partnering to send a commercial crew to “boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope.” If it is successful, it will extend the telescope’s life span by as much as 20 years, Aria reports.
• What did we just watch?: Meta has a new feature called Make-A-Video that enables you to make videos out of text prompts. To quote Devin, “I just think it’s fascinating that however realistic these videos are in one sense, they’re all so bizarre and off-putting in others.” 

Daily Crunch: It’s AI day for Tesla, but we’re here for the cringey texts  by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/30/daily-crunch-its-ai-day-for-tesla-but-were-here-for-the-cringey-texts/

Google appears to have disabled Google Translate in parts of China

Google appears to have disabled access to Google Translate in parts of China, redirecting visitors to the Hong Kong domain — which isn’t accessible from the mainland. According to users on Reddit and site archives viewed by TechCrunch, Google swapped the Google Translate interface at translate.google.cn with a generic Google Search page at some point within the last 24 hours.

The change is reportedly impacting the translation features of apps like KOReader, a document viewer, for China-based users, as well as Chrome’s built-in translation functionality. Google hasn’t responded to a request for comment; we’ll update this piece if we hear back.

Google has a long and complicated relationship with the Chinese government. In 2006, the company entered the Chinese market with a version of its search engine that was subject to government censorship rules. But after state-sponsored hacks and government-ordered blocks on Google services in response to YouTube footage showing Chinese security forces beating Tibetans, Google shut down Google Search in the mainland and briefly rerouted searches through its uncensored Hong Kong domain.

The current Google Translate homepage in many parts of China.

Google reportedly explored relaunching Google Search in China in 2018 and 2019 as part of a project code-named Dragonfly, which would’ve censored results and recorded users’ locations as well as their internet browsing histories. But those plans were scuttled following clashes within Google led by the company’s privacy team, according to The Intercept.

In 2020, following the enactment of a national security law in Hong Kong that gave local authorities greatly expanded surveillance powers, Google said it wouldn’t directly respond to data requests from the Hong Kong law enforcement and instead would have them go through a mutual legal assistance treaty with the U.S.

Assuming it’s not a technical issue, the disabling of Google Translate in much of the mainland could be related to the upcoming National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which takes place October 16. The Chinese government has previously blocked Google services around major political events and politically sensitive anniversaries like that of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Google appears to have disabled Google Translate in parts of China by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/30/google-appears-to-have-disabled-google-translate-in-parts-of-china/

Google Colaboratory launches a pay-as-you-go option, premium GPU access

Google Colaboratory (Colab for short), Google’s service designed to allow anyone to write and execute arbitrary Python code through a web browser, is introducing a pay-as-a-you-go plan. In its first pricing change since Google launched premium Colab plans in 2020, Colab will now give users the option to purchase additional compute time in Colab with or without a paid subscription.

Google says that the update won’t affect the free-of-charge Colab tier, which remains in its current form. The only material change is that users can buy access to compute in the form of “compute units,” starting at $9.99 for 100 units or $49.99 for 500.

As Google Colab product lead Chris Perry explains in a blog post:

Paid users now have the flexibility to exhaust compute quota, measured in compute units, at whatever rate they choose. As compute units are exhausted, a user can choose to purchase more with pay-as-you-go at their discretion. Once a user has exhausted their compute units their Colab usage quota will revert to our free of charge tier limits.

In tandem with the pay-as-you-go rollout, Google announced that paid Colab users can now choose between standard or “premium” GPUs in Colab — the latter typically being Nvidia V100 or A100 Tensor Core GPUs. (Standard GPUs in Colab are usually Nvidia T4 Tensor Core GPUs.) However, the company notes that getting a specific GPU chip type assignment isn’t guaranteed and depends on a number of factors, including availability and a user’s paid balance with Colab.

It goes without saying, but premium GPUs will also deplete Colab compute units faster than the standard GPUs.

Google began telegraphing the rollout of pay-as-you-go options in Colab several weeks ago, when it notified Colab users via email that it was adopting the aforementioned compute units system for subscribers. It framed the shift as a move toward transparency, allowing user to “have more control over how and when [they] use Colab.”

Some perceived the move as user-hostile — an attempt to charge more for or clamp down on Colab usage. But in a statement to TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson pointed out that limits have always applied to all tiers of Colab usage paid plans.

“[T]hese updates are meant to give users more visibility into … limits,” the spokesperson said via email. “Colab will continue supporting its free of charge tier, including basic GPU access.”

The sensitivity around pricing changes reflects how much Colab has grown since it spun out from an internal Google Research project in late 2017. The platform has become the de facto digital breadboard for demos within the AI research community — it’s not uncommon for researchers who’ve written code to include links to Colab pages on or alongside the GitHub repositories hosting the code.

Google Colaboratory launches a pay-as-you-go option, premium GPU access by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/google-colaboratory-launches-a-pay-as-you-go-option-premium-gpu-access/

mmhmm co-founders are building the great pyramid of hybrid work

Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups.

When Phil Libin co-founded Evernote he spent tons of money making the perfect working environment with chic offices, a shuttle bus and headphones to block out all of his employees’ distracting co-workers. He’s since seen the work-from-home light and co-founded mmhmm to make working remotely more efficient and even more fun. In this episode Phil breaks down his pyramid of communication, explains how embracing asynchronous videos changed everything about meetings at mmhmm and states why he will never go to work in the metaverse.

If you love live conversations with founders, you’ll love TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco from October 18-20. Use code FOUND for 15% off your ticket.

Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each week.

Connect with us:

• On Twitter
• On Instagram
• Via email: found@techcrunch.com

mmhmm co-founders are building the great pyramid of hybrid work by Maggie Stamets originally published on TechCrunch

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Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducts fourth round of layoffs in 2022

Truepill, a platform that helps other companies offer diagnostics, telehealth services and prescriptions, has conducted its fourth layoff of the year.

Sources say the layoff impacted around 65% of the existing staff across the engineering, human resources, design, IT and finance teams. The layoff comes around two months after its last round, which impacted about a third of the company, or 175 people.

One employee, who spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity, said that they were told that their position was “no longer sustainable due to economic factors” on a 1:1 call with leadership. Severance was mentioned but HR has not yet reached out to the employee with further details.

“[The company said] it hoped there wasn’t going to be any layoffs after the August round,” the source said. “[Leadership said that] investors made some requests in order for the company to extend the financial runway so they made tough choices, but that we were now on good footing.”

A company-wide all hands, previously scheduled for this week, has been bumped to next week, the source added.

A troubling startup layoff trend has emerged

In April, Truepill halted prescriptions to ADHD medications because of growing concerns about digital health. The disruption in service impacted employees within Truepill’s recently acquired adult ADHD treatment company, Ahead. Reports say that Truepill was the preferred pharmacy partner of Cerebral, which is under federal investigation amid claims that employees felt pressure to prescribe drugs to customers.

In June, Viswanathan confirmed that he laid off an additional 15% of staff, impacting 150 people. Viswanathan said in a letter that the company was “focused on defining a new category in healthcare and growing top-line revenue,” but what was essential is the company operates “with a new level of financial discipline and prioritization, ensuring the longevity of Truepill for both our clients and our teams.”

In August, Truepill’s entire U.K. team was laid off, as well as a meaningful portion of the virtual pharmacy platform’s product team, sources told TechCrunch. The data team was also impacted, while the diagnostics and telehealth components of the company — its core services — will be only lightly supported going forward.

Today’s layoff impacts a number of teams, including the support engineering team that was tasked in picking up the U.K. team’s work after they were let go.

Truepill did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Current and former Truepill employees can reach out to Natasha Mascarenhas at natasha.m@techcrunch.com, or Signal, a secure messaging app, at (925) 271 0912.

A troubling startup layoff trend has emerged

Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducts fourth round of layoffs in 2022 by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/truepill-a-digital-health-unicorn-conducts-fourth-round-of-layoffs-in-2022/

Daily Crunch: Google to sunset Stadia in January 2023, will refund hardware purchases

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Today we are mostly listening to acoustic covers of songs we love (a surprise Iron and Wine cover, perhaps?), and mentally preparing ourselves for TechCrunch Disrupt. Which reminds us — did you know you can get 15% off passes with the DC discount code for being a Daily Crunch reader? Don’t say we never did anything for you, dear reader!  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Simple crypto: Cryptocurrencies are still complex, or that’s the viewpoint of Solvo, a new app that is making crypto investment simpler, Romain reports. What’s different is that instead of being offered dozens of currencies to choose from, Solvo has curated a list of 10 so you don’t get lost in all the names.
• Well that didn’t last long: On Monday we brought you news that “the OG app is out to bring Instagram back to its glory days.” Today, Ivan has an update that the app was removed from the Apple App Store after Meta said the OG was Instagram in “an unauthorized manner.”
• Long live IPOs!: Travel is back and with it news that TripActions was making a possible play for an initial public offering, which would value the company at $12 billion, Mary Ann reports. Catch Alex’s take on the matter down in the TC+ section.

Startups and VC

Eviation’s Alice electric aircraft took off for the first time yesterday, teasing a future in which regional flights of hundreds of miles will be done with zero emissions and a lot less noise. It’s still a ways off, but today’s demonstration shows it’s at least just a matter of time and money, Devin reports.

Apropos electric vehicles, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has (finally!) begun production of Lordstown Motors’ electric pickup truck. The news is a milestone for both companies, Rebecca reports. Foxconn as it diversifies from manufacturing consumer electronics like iPhones to electric vehicles, and Lordstown as it finally gets its much-anticipated Endurance truck off production lines and, hopefully, into customers’ hands.

We have more, of course. Because that’s what we do:

• Hustlin’ up an additional $46.1 million: Hustle Fund’s just closed a third fund, Natasha M reports.
• This one is ripe for the plucking: Anna reports that Stockholm-based Ripe helps product-led B2B companies find the ripest leads in their customer base.
• The whitest of white hats: Kyle reports that Detectify secures an additional $10 million more to expand its ethical hacking platform.
• It’s all clicking into place: Lunio raises $15 million to combat click fraud with its algorithms, Kyle reports.
• Are we humans, or are we dancers?: Better.com has seen wave after wave of layoffs. In “Inside the human cost of Better.com’s brutal layoffs,” Christine and Mary Ann explore how that impacted the employees who were ejected.

How to make coaching work for your sales team

Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

A strong sales organization is the tip of the spear for every SaaS startup, but because so few founders have meaningful experience in this arena, they don’t know how to set their teams up for success.

In this TC+ article, contributor Kevin Varadian explains how to chart a sales coaching journey that boosts retention and increases revenue.

“It’s important to recognize that today’s sales teams are more problem-solvers than deal-closers — soft skills are more important here than technical capabilities,” he says.

How to make coaching work for your sales team

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Roller-coaster stocks, but potential galore: UiPath co-CEO Rob Enslin still sees plenty of potential despite stock turbulence by Ron.
• MoCap money tap: Haje is back with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time of Rokoko’s $3 million strategic extension deck.
• An IPO at last!: Alex explains why he’s excited about the upcoming TripActions IPO.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Google’s Stadia is donezo, Brian reports. Stadia, the company’s game streaming service, was young, just under three years old, but just wasn’t getting the expected traction. However, based on Stadia’s remarks, there may be something new brewing.

We had a rather long Big Tech section for you yesterday, so enjoy these five shorter snippets:

• Make amends: Amnesty International’s new report is calling for Meta to pay reparations for Facebook’s role in promoting content that led to the Rohingya genocide in 2017, Natasha L reports.
• Pick up and go: Amazon quietly acquired India-based Just Walk Out as the company aims to expand its Amazon Go play in the country, Jagmeet writes.
• Tap tap: Square users can now use their iPhones to collect payments with the “tap to pay” feature, Ivan reports.
• Making a static waterfall dynamic: Wait until you see what Adobe will enable you to do with your photos, Kyle writes.
• Poppin’ bottles: TikTok broke records for all the dough it brought in during the third quarter as App Store revenue declined overall, Sarah reports.

Daily Crunch: Google to sunset Stadia in January 2023, will refund hardware purchases by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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NASA and SpaceX are studying sending a private crew to boost Hubble’s orbit

SpaceX and NASA have signed a new agreement to study the feasibility of sending a commercial crew in a SpaceX Dragon to boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope. If completed, the mission could extend the operational lifespan of the telescope by as much as 20 years.

NASA officials cautioned that today’s news is not a mission announcement. For now, it’s just a feasibility study to consider whether such a mission is sensible, given technical and other constraints. Indeed, one might assume that an uncrewed space tug might be best suited for an orbital boosting mission, and there are plenty of space startups working on that kind of technology. But apparently the mission was SpaceX’s idea, and for some reason, they (and their partner, Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Program) want humans involved.

The agreement starts to make more sense with NASA’s acknowledgement that the mission, should it go forward, would come at no cost to the government. NASA and SpaceX are also each funding their participation in the study, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said during a media briefing, though he didn’t specify how much the study will cost.

One of the main goals of the six-month feasibility study is to explore how a crewed Dragon capsule, possible under the aegis of a Polaris Program mission, could safely rendezvous and dock with Hubble, and then boost the Hubble Space Telescope to a higher orbit. While SpaceX has plenty of experience docking with the International Space Station, SpaceX’s VP of customer operations and integration Jessica Jensen acknowledged that Hubble represents an entirely different challenge.

“Hubble’s different,” she said. “It’s in a different orbit, different mass, different vehicle […] it will all be unique to the telescope.”

The feasibility study, which will be predominately technical but will also consider cost and schedule, might determine that an uncrewed mission is more appropriate, Jensen added. “At this point, everything is on the table,” she said.

It seems likely that the mission would be part of the Polaris Program, a private spaceflight program headed by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire that flew to space on the Inspiration4 mission. That mission, which was conducted in partnership with SpaceX, was estimated to cost less than $200 million. Isaacman, who made his fortune from the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, footed the bill.

Hubble recently lost its place as the world’s most famous space telescope, after the newer and more powerful James Webb Space Telescope released its first images this summer. But Hubble’s contributions to science over its 32-year lifespan are arguably immeasurable: The telescope has made more than 1.5 million observations and helped generate material for more than 19,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers, Patrick Crouse, Hubble project manager, said.

But Hubble has not been immune to Earth’s gravity. Since the last servicing mission in 2009, it’s lost about 30 kilometers of altitude, dropping from around 565 kilometers to just under 535. This mission could provide 40-70 kilometers of boost, which could add 15 or even 20 years to the Hubble’s operational life, Crouse said. Should a reboosting mission not take place, Hubble may need to be de-orbited by the end of this decade.

The news is notable not just as the latest sign that the space agency is increasingly turning to commercial partnerships to execute essential missions. It also shows that NASA is theoretically open to working with private, non-astronaut crews, too.

“Alongside NASA, exploration is one of many objectives for the commercial space industry, and probably one of the greatest exploration assets of all time is the Hubble Space Telescope,” Isaacman said. “It’s absolutely exciting to think about extending the life and capabilities of one of our greatest explorers.”

NASA and SpaceX are studying sending a private crew to boost Hubble’s orbit by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/nasa-and-spacex-are-studying-sending-a-private-crew-to-boost-hubbles-orbit/

Daily Crunch: Google to sunset Stadia in January 2023, will refund hardware purchases

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Today we are mostly listening to acoustic covers of songs we love (a surprise Iron and Wine cover, perhaps?), and mentally preparing ourselves for TechCrunch Disrupt. Which reminds us — did you know you can get 15% off passes with the DC discount code for being a Daily Crunch reader? Don’t say we never did anything for you, dear reader!  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Simple crypto: Cryptocurrencies are still complex, or that’s the viewpoint of Solvo, a new app that is making crypto investment simpler, Romain reports. What’s different is that instead of being offered dozens of currencies to choose from, Solvo has curated a list of 10 so you don’t get lost in all the names.
• Well that didn’t last long: On Monday we brought you news that “the OG app is out to bring Instagram back to its glory days.” Today, Ivan has an update that the app was removed from the Apple App Store after Meta said the OG was Instagram in “an unauthorized manner.”
• Long live IPOs!: Travel is back and with it news that TripActions was making a possible play for an initial public offering, which would value the company at $12 billion, Mary Ann reports. Catch Alex’s take on the matter down in the TC+ section.

Startups and VC

Eviation’s Alice electric aircraft took off for the first time yesterday, teasing a future in which regional flights of hundreds of miles will be done with zero emissions and a lot less noise. It’s still a ways off, but today’s demonstration shows it’s at least just a matter of time and money, Devin reports.

Apropos electric vehicles, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has (finally!) begun production of Lordstown Motors’ electric pickup truck. The news is a milestone for both companies, Rebecca reports. Foxconn as it diversifies from manufacturing consumer electronics like iPhones to electric vehicles, and Lordstown as it finally gets its much-anticipated Endurance truck off production lines and, hopefully, into customers’ hands.

We have more, of course. Because that’s what we do:

• Hustlin’ up an additional $46.1 million: Hustle Fund’s just closed a third fund, Natasha M reports.
• This one is ripe for the plucking: Anna reports that Stockholm-based Ripe helps product-led B2B companies find the ripest leads in their customer base.
• The whitest of white hats: Kyle reports that Detectify secures an additional $10 million more to expand its ethical hacking platform.
• It’s all clicking into place: Lunio raises $15 million to combat click fraud with its algorithms, Kyle reports.
• Are we humans, or are we dancers?: Better.com has seen wave after wave of layoffs. In “Inside the human cost of Better.com’s brutal layoffs,” Christine and Mary Ann explore how that impacted the employees who were ejected.

How to make coaching work for your sales team

Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

A strong sales organization is the tip of the spear for every SaaS startup, but because so few founders have meaningful experience in this arena, they don’t know how to set their teams up for success.

In this TC+ article, contributor Kevin Varadian explains how to chart a sales coaching journey that boosts retention and increases revenue.

“It’s important to recognize that today’s sales teams are more problem-solvers than deal-closers — soft skills are more important here than technical capabilities,” he says.

How to make coaching work for your sales team

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Roller-coaster stocks, but potential galore: UiPath co-CEO Rob Enslin still sees plenty of potential despite stock turbulence by Ron.
• MoCap money tap: Haje is back with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time of Rokoko’s $3 million strategic extension deck.
• An IPO at last!: Alex explains why he’s excited about the upcoming TripActions IPO.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Google’s Stadia is donezo, Brian reports. Stadia, the company’s game streaming service, was young, just under three years old, but just wasn’t getting the expected traction. However, based on Stadia’s remarks, there may be something new brewing.

We had a rather long Big Tech section for you yesterday, so enjoy these five shorter snippets:

• Make amends: Amnesty International’s new report is calling for Meta to pay reparations for Facebook’s role in promoting content that led to the Rohingya genocide in 2017, Natasha L reports.
• Pick up and go: Amazon quietly acquired India-based Just Walk Out as the company aims to expand its Amazon Go play in the country, Jagmeet writes.
• Tap tap: Square users can now use their iPhones to collect payments with the “tap to pay” feature, Ivan reports.
• Making a static waterfall dynamic: Wait until you see what Adobe will enable you to do with your photos, Kyle writes.
• Poppin’ bottles: TikTok broke records for all the dough it brought in during the third quarter as App Store revenue declined overall, Sarah reports.

Daily Crunch: Google to sunset Stadia in January 2023, will refund hardware purchases by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/daily-crunch-google-to-sunset-stadia-in-january-2023-will-refund-hardware-purchases/

Astra will no longer launch NASA’s TROPICS satellites

Rocket launch company Astra will no longer send the remaining NASA TROPICS payloads to space, but instead will launch other “comparable” scientific missions for the agency, the company announced Wednesday. The change to the launch agreement comes a little over three months after Astra’s first TROPICS launch ended in failure after the upper stage shut down prior to delivering the payload to orbit.

NASA’s TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats) program includes a trio of launches aimed at sending a total of six earth science CubeSats to space. The TROPICS satellites will be used to measure variables like humidity and pressure inside storm systems — a need that’s especially prescient today, when Hurricane Ian made landfall on the west coast of Florida.

Astra was awarded the launch contract for TROPICS in February 2021 at a total value of $7.95 million. It is unclear whether the modification to this existing launch services agreement will change the value of the contract.

The company conducted the TROPICS I launch with its Rocket 3.3 launch vehicle, a system designed to be lightweight and cheap to launch. But just a few weeks after the failure of that mission, which resulted in a complete loss of payload, Astra announced a complete change to its business plan. Instead of continuing launches with the Rocket 3, the company said it would re-manifest all launches on the considerably larger Rocket 4. That rocket, which CEO Chris Kemp said would have a payload capacity of 600 kilograms, is still under development.

“Following the first TROPICS launch attempt, Astra and NASA engaged in discussions regarding the remaining launch attempts,” NASA said in a statement. “Astra then notified NASA of its intent to discontinue its Rocket 3.3 and indicated the company would potentially not resume launches prior to the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.”

The 12 remaining companies that are eligible to provide launch services through NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions program will be able to compete for the TROPICS contract. These companies include ABL Space Systems, Rocket Lab, Relativity, Firefly and Virgin Orbit.

In a separate update, Astra said the premature upper-stage shutdown during the TROPICS I mission was due to “a higher-than-normal fuel consumption rate.” The company added that engineers will conduct additional tests to verify the root cause of the anomaly, but that they’ve narrowed the cause to an issue with the upper-stage engines. The investigation has been conducted with the participation of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is standard for all rocket flight anomalies.

Astra stock price has plummeted sharply over the past six months. At the beginning of May, stock was trading north of $3.25; today, it’s worth $0.68 per share. The company began trading on the public markets in June of last year, after merging with blank-check firm Holicity.

Astra will no longer launch NASA’s TROPICS satellites by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/28/astra-will-no-longer-launch-nasas-tropics-satellites/

The Startup Battlefield 200: Hardware, Robotics, AI+ML & Mobility + Transportation

We’re beyond amazed at the collective creativity, ingenuity and technical prowess of the Startup Battlefield 200. Out of thousands of applications, only 200 early-stage startups made the final cut, and you’ll find all of them — and only them — exhibiting on the TechCrunch Disrupt show floor on October 18-20 in San Francisco.

That’s a whole lotta noteworthy startups, so we’re going to break it down a bit for you and highlight them by vertical. Today it’s hardware, robotics and mobility. Hungry for more? You can find them all listed in the Exhibitor Directory.

Startup Battlefield 200: Hardware, Robotics, AI+ML & Mobility + Transportation edition

• Aether Biomedical Pvt
• Ally Robotics
• Boundless Robotics
• Buzr Labs, Inc.
• Deep Render Ltd.
• FLUIX
• Helios Life Enterprises
• Hidden Door
• Impossible Metals
• Jasper
• KATAKEM
• LintrinsIC
• Metabob
• PantheonDesign
• PseudolithIC Inc.
• RIF Robotics
• Studiobox
• Swap Robotics(opens in a new window)

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Swap Robotics

• Terrascope
• Touchlab Limited

• BlueSpace

• CM Materials

• Koop Technologies

• METROSPEEDY
• Mobilio
• PreAct Technologies

• Radian BiKube

• ReJoule

• Ridepanda

• Sober Space

• Swyft Cities

• TurnSignl

• VisionAnchor

TC Disrupt takes place on October 18-20. It’s where startups go to grow, so grab your pass today and come prepared to network with these great startups!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

The Startup Battlefield 200: Hardware, Robotics, AI+ML & Mobility + Transportation by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

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