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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Daily Crunch - Lululemon is acquiring MIrror

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Tuesday, June 30, 2020 By Anthony Ha

Lululemon is paying $500 million to acquire a home fitness startup, India bans TikTok and Amazon Prime Video is the latest streaming service to add a co-viewing experience.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 30, 2020.

Lululemon set to acquire home fitness startup Mirror for $500M

The deal comes at a time when home workout solutions are in high demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when gyms begin to reopen in different locales, many will likely be wary of returning to a potentially high-risk enclosed space, at least for as long as the virus continues to spread.

Although there’s stiff competition in the category of connected fitness slabs, including Tonal and Tempo, Mirror continues to be the biggest name of the bunch. And the two companies have a relationship dating back to late last year, when Lululemon become an investor in Mirror.

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Lululemon set to acquire home fitness startup Mirror for $500M image

Image Credits: Steve Jennings / Stringer / Getty Images

A good knowledge management solution can increase productivity.

Sponsored by Wix Answers

Without the ability to tap a colleague on a shoulder and with teams getting more globally distributed due to the option of remote work being more acceptable, knowledge management is essential for business.

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TikTok goes down in India, its biggest overseas market

A growing number of internet service providers in India have started to block their subscribers from accessing TikTok a day after the Indian government banned the popular short-video app and 58 other services over security and privacy concerns.

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Amazon Prime Video introduces 'Watch Party,' a social co-viewing experience included with Prime

Amazon is the latest streaming service to roll out built-in support for co-viewing. While the U.S. was sheltering in place under coronavirus lockdowns, a browser extension called Netflix Party went viral. So HBO partnered with the browser extension maker Scener to offer a "virtual theater" experience for co-watching, while Hulu launched its own native Watch Party feature for its "No Ads" subscribers on Hulu.com.

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Amazon Prime Video introduces 'Watch Party,' a social co-viewing experience included with Prime image

Image Credits: Amazon

After losing Grubhub, Uber reportedly hails Postmates

Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times. (The talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through.)

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13 Boston-focused venture capitalists talk green shoots and startup recovery

This is the second half of our Boston investor survey. Looking to the future, we asked: Are investors seeing green shoots? When is a recovery likely to begin? What's making them feel hopeful in this tenuous era? (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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13 Boston-focused venture capitalists talk green shoots and startup recovery image

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman

Facebook says it will prioritize original reporting and 'transparent authorship' in the News Feed

The change comes as a number of high-profile companies have said that they will pull their advertising from Facebook as part of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, organized by civil rights groups as a way to pressure the social network to take stronger steps against hate speech and misinformation.

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In a significant expansion, Spotify to launch real-time lyrics in 26 markets

Last November, Spotify confirmed it was testing real-time lyrics synced to music in select markets. Today, the company is announcing the launch of its new lyrics feature in 26 worldwide markets across Southeast Asia, India and Latin America.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

Daily Crunch - Facebook faces an advertiser revolt

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Monday, June 29, 2020 By Anthony Ha

Facebook takes (small) steps to improve its content policies as advertisers join a broad boycott, founder Alexis Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital and Waze gets a new look.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 29, 2020.

As advertisers revolt, Facebook commits to flagging 'newsworthy' political speech that violates policy

In a live-streamed segment of the company's weekly all-hands meeting, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new measures to fight voter suppression and misinformation. At the heart of the policy changes is an admission that the company will continue to allow politicians and public figures to disseminate hate speech that does, in fact, violate Facebook's own guidelines — but it will add a label to denote they're remaining on the platform because of their "newsworthy" nature.

This announcement comes as advertiser momentum against the social network’s content and monetization policies continues to grow, with Unilever and Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) both committing to pull advertising from Facebook.

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As advertisers revolt, Facebook commits to flagging 'newsworthy' political speech that violates policy image

Image Credits: Alexander Koerner/Getty Images / Getty Images

Be there for your customers

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Get a taste of customer satisfaction with the right support products. Apply to the Zendesk for Startups program and try our products free for 6 months, along with expert advice and hands-on support to get up and running in no time.

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Alexis Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital

Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital to work on "a new project that will support a generation of founders in tech and beyond," the firm said in a statement to TechCrunch. According to Axios, Ohanian is leaving Initialized to work more closely on pre-seed efforts.

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Waze gets a big visual update with a focus on driver emotions

The new look is much more colorful, and also foregrounds the ability for individual drivers to share their current emotions with Moods, a set of user-selectable icons (with an initial group of 30) that can reflect how you're feeling as you're driving.

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Waze gets a big visual update with a focus on driver emotions image

Amazon warehouse workers strike in Germany over COVID-19 conditions

Amazon warehouse workers in Germany are striking for 48 hours this week, to protest conditions that have led to COVID-19 infections among fellow employees. Strikes began today at six warehouses and are set to continue through the end of day Tuesday.

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Four views: How will the work visa ban affect tech and which changes will last?

Normally, the government would process tens of thousands of visa applications and renewals in October at the start of its fiscal year, but President Trump’s executive order all but guarantees new visas won't be granted until 2021. Four TechCrunch staffers analyzed the president's move in an attempt to see what it portends for the tech industry, the U.S. economy and our national image. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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Four views: How will the work visa ban affect tech and which changes will last? image

Image Credits: Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty Images

Apple began work on the Watch's handwashing feature years before COVID-19

Unlike other rush initiatives undertaken by the company once the virus hit, however, the forthcoming Apple Watch handwashing app wasn't built overnight. The feature was the result of "years of work," VP of Technology Kevin Lynch told TechCrunch.

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This week's TechCrunch podcasts

The latest full-length Equity episode discusses new funding rounds for Away and Sonder, while the Monday news roundup has the latest on the Rothenberg VC Scandal. And Original Content has a review of the second season of “The Politician” on Netflix.

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Friday, June 26, 2020

Daily Crunch - Amazon buys self-driving startup Zoox

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Friday, June 26, 2020 By Anthony Ha

Amazon makes an autonomous driving acquisition, Microsoft closes its retail stores and health insurance startup Oscar raises $225 million.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 26, 2020.

Amazon to acquire autonomous driving startup Zoox

According to Amazon’s announcement, Zoox will continue to exist as a standalone business, with current CEO Aicha Evans continuing in her role, along with CTO and co-founder Jesse Levinson. The Financial Time reports that the deal is worth $1.2 billion.

Amazon has been working on its own autonomous vehicle technology projects, including its last-mile delivery robots. The company has also invested in autonomous driving startup Aurora, and it has tested self-driving trucks powered by self-driving freight startup Embark.

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Amazon to acquire autonomous driving startup Zoox image

Watch startups battle it out in Visa innovation competition

Sponsored by Visa Everywhere Initiative

Visa's open innovation program tasks fintech startups with solving future challenges faced by the payments and commerce industry. On 7/1, the finalists will go head to head in a live streamed competition, hosted on TechCrunch. Sign up to watch now.

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Microsoft is closing all of its retail stores for good

As other retailers begin the slow process of reopening, Microsoft has announced that it will be permanently shutting down the vast majority of its retail stores. The remaining locations — in cities like London, New York City and Sydney, as well as on Microsoft’s Redmond campus — will become “Microsoft Experience Centers,” rather than standard retail stores.

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Oscar's health insurance platform nabs another $225 million

Oscar's insurance customers have the distinction of being among the most active users of telemedicine in the United States, according to the company. Around 30% of patients with insurance plans from Oscar have used telemedical services, versus only 10% of the country as a whole.

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Oscar's health insurance platform nabs another $225 million image

Luckin Coffee will unluckin'ly delist from Nasdaq following fraud allegations

An investigation by the company’s board found that Luckin had inflated sales by essentially having affiliated companies buy large orders of coffees that never got delivered. And of course, that's fraud when you put it on a 10-K form and submit it to the SEC.

(Also, it’s very important to me that you know: I did not write this headline.)

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Four perspectives: Will Apple trim App Store fees?

Given its massive reach, is it time for Apple to change its terms? Will the company allow its revenue share to go gently into that good night, or does it have enough resources to keep new legislation at bay and mollify an increasingly vocal community of software developers? (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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Four perspectives: Will Apple trim App Store fees? image

Image Credits: Peter Dazeley / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

Google finally brings group calling to the Nest Hub Max

Video chat has long been one of the chief selling points of smart screens like the Amazon Echo Show and Google's Nest Hub Max (the regular Hub doesn’t have a camera). But until yesterday, the latter only offered users the option to have one-on-one calls.

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Amazon really just renamed a Seattle stadium 'Climate Pledge Arena'

One more Amazon story to close out the week: The company is buying the rights to Seattle's KeyArena, an aging stadium currently under redevelopment. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, “Instead of calling it Amazon Arena, we're naming it Climate Pledge Arena as a regular reminder of the urgent need for climate action.”

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