President Donald Trump is an automated-vehicle skeptic, a point of view that lies in stark contrast with agencies within his own administration, including the U.S. Department of Transportation .
According to a recent scoop by Axios, Trump has privately said he thinks the autonomous-vehicle revolution is “crazy.” Trump’s point of view isn’t exactly surprising. His recent tweets about airplanes becoming too complex illustrates his Luddite leanings.
The interesting bit — beyond a recounting of Trump pantomiming self-driving cars veering out of control — is how his personal views compare to the DOT.
Just last week during SXSW in Austin, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced the creation of the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council, an internal organization designed to resolve jurisdictional and regulatory gaps that may impede the deployment of new technology, such as tunneling, hyperloop, autonomous vehicles and other innovations.
“New technologies increasingly straddle more than one mode of transportation, so I’ve signed an order creating a new internal Department council to better coordinate the review of innovation that have multi-modal applications,” Chao said in a prepared statement at the time.
Meanwhile, other AV-related policies and legislation are in various stages of review.
The DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Friday that automated-vehicle petitions from Nuro and General Motors are advancing to the Federal Register for public review and comment.
The parallel viewpoints have yet to collide. There’s no evidence that Trump’s personal views on autonomous-vehicle technology has been inserted into DOT policy. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t.
AV companies are hip to this eventuality and are taking steps now to educate the masses — and Trump. Take the Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE) coalition, as one example. PAVE launched in January with a founding group that included a number of major automakers, technology companies and organizations with a stake in autonomous vehicles, including Audi, Aurora, Cruise, GM, Mobileye, Nvidia, Toyota, Waymo and Zoox to spread the word about advanced vehicle technologies and self-driving vehicles. Their message: This tech can transform transportation and make it safer and more sustainable.
Waymo has also teamed up with AAA on a public education campaign to spread the word about autonomous-vehicle technology and how it could impact safety and help people get around. The partnership, announced recently, is with AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah (AAA NCNU), a regional organization that oversees operations in seven markets, including well-known hubs of autonomous vehicle development such as Arizona and California.
Source: TechCrunch
Podcasts are exploding in popularity and Y Combinator, the startup accelerator known for its long list of unicorn graduates, is throwing its support behind a business tackling the podcast monetization problem. Among its latest and largest-ever cohort is Brew, a subscription-based app complete with original content.
Though Brew’s founders, Jijo Sunny, Madhavan Ramakrishnan, Aleesha John and Joseph Sunny, call Brew the “Netflix for podcasts,” the app differs from Luminary, which made headlines with the same tagline and a $100 million round earlier this month. Luminary, which hasn’t yet launched, will similarly operate under a subscription model, charging $8 a month for access to its podcasts. Instead of opening its platform to creators of any stature, the business is striking deals with established voices in the podcast industry, like Guy Raz of “How I Built This,” Adam Davidson of “Planet Money” and celebrities Trevor Noah and Lena Dunham.
Brew, on the other hand, charges listeners $5 per month for access to a different demographic: upstart podcasters and rising stars alike. In other words, if you and your mom wanted to start a podcast — and get paid — you can sign up on Brew and instantly start raking in cash. That is, if you’re garnering an audience of listeners; Brew pays its creators based on their number of unique listens.
The founding team behind Brew, a startup tackling the podcast monetization problem.
“Podcasts, by nature, have a low barrier to entry and that’s the best thing about podcasts, right?,” Brew chief executive officer Jijo Sunny tells TechCrunch. “Anyone anywhere can set up a podcast. To be a Netflix for audio, it has to be for all creators, not celebrities like Trevor Noah.”
The app officially launched in the app store last week with several original ad-free shows, including original content from YouTubers Boogie2988 and Jack Vale, who boast a 4.5 million and 1.5 million following on YouTube, respectively. Next month, Brew will make its platform available for all podcasters to upload shows.
“Our vision is to help millions of creators earn a living doing what they love,” Ramakrishnan tells TechCrunch.
The startup’s long-term vision includes incorporating a tipping feature, much like Himalaya, another podcasting business that recently secured a $100 million check. Himalaya allows listeners to send micro-payments to creators to help subsidize their ad-based income.
Later, Brew plans to allow podcasters to operate online stores within the app, so they can earn additional money through merchandise sales. Live podcasts, publishing and production tools are also on the roadmap.
Podcast startups are taking off thanks to support from venture capitalists, but the people behind the content still struggle to earn a solid paycheck. Justine and Olivia Moore of CRV, an early-stage venture capital firm, say podcasts monetize at only a penny per listener hour, on average. Podcasting, in other words, makes 10x less money per hours consumed than radio, TV, magazines or any other major content medium. Meanwhile, 73 million people are enjoying podcasts every month, per Edison Research, and some 15 billion episodes are downloaded each year.
It’s clear there is an untapped opportunity to help content creators get rich. The Brew team’s experience — they previously built Buymeacoffee.com, a tipping platform for artists that has funded 40,000 people to date — coupled with VCs excitement for the growing medium puts Brew on a solid path for growth.
Brew’s team is originally from Kerala, India but plans to permanently set up shop in San Francisco. They’ve raised a total of $400,000, including Y Combinator’s $150,000 check. CrunchRoll founder Kun Gao and Teachable CEO Ankur Nagpal are amongst its early backers.
Brew, alongside some 200 other startups, will pitch to investors at YC Demo Days later today and tomorrow.
Source: TechCrunch
Looking for a new laptop to start off the spring season? HP has you covered and is currently running a sale that is cutting $270 off the price of the 15-inch touchscreen variant of its Spectre X360 Windows 10 convertible laptop.
The post HP’s spring sale cuts prices on the 15-inch Spectre x360 by $270 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
MySpace is no longer a safe refuge for music and media produced in the 2000s. It said that almost any artistic content uploaded to the site between 2003 and 2015 may have been lost as part of a server migration last year.
The post There’s more space on MySpace after ‘accidental’ wipe of 50 million songs appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Use these gardening and landscaping apps to keep your lawn healthy, figure out the right stuff to plant and get alerts so your hard work doesn’t go to waste.
Source: CNET
No more partying like it’s 2003-2015 on the social network that was once the biggest site in the US.
Source: CNET
With its W12 engine waylaid for further calibration work, Bentley will launch the new Conti GT with V8s first in the US.
Source: CNET
New MoviePass subscribers reportedly would pay for a year in advance using their bank account.
Source: CNET
The Omen Mindframe headset uses HP’s FrostCap technology to keep ears cool during long gaming sections. While it delivers on keeping ears cool, it forgets some of the essentials of a quality gaming headset.
The post HP’s Omen Mindframe headset keeps your ears chill, but might leave you lukewarm appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Apple launches new iPad Air and iPad mini
The company is (finally) updating the iPad mini and adding a new iPad Air. This model sits between the entry-level 9.7-inch iPad and the 11-inch iPad Pro in the lineup.
All new models now support the first-generation Apple Pencil — but not the new Apple Pencil that supports magnetic charging and pairing.
2. Myspace may have lost more than a decade’s worth of user music
The once-dominant social network posted a note on its site reading, “As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
3. Facebook failed to block 20 percent of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos
Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos from its site within the first 24 hours after a shooter live-streamed his attack on two New Zealand mosques. In a series of tweets, Facebook’s Mia Garlick said a total of 1.2 million videos were blocked at the point of upload — but she did not say why the other 300,000 videos were not caught at upload.
4. Lyft’s imminent IPO could value the company at $23B
Ride-hailing firm Lyft will make its Nasdaq debut as early as next week at a valuation of up to $23 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.
5. Moby’s new album is exclusive to the Calm meditation app
Album exclusives are nothing new in the age of Tidal, of course. But Moby’s latest is taking a circuitous route to the world’s mobile devices.
6. Slack hands over control of encryption keys to regulated customers
Slack announced today that it is launching Enterprise Key Management for Slack, a new tool that enables customers to control their encryption keys in the enterprise version of the communications app.
7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts
The latest episode of Equity looks at Uber’s IPO plans, while the team at Mixtape talks to Angelica Ross of the FX show “Pose.”
Source: TechCrunch