President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he will act as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok from the US, CNBC reported.
The story is updating.
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Friday, July 31, 2020
Trump told reporters he will use executive power to ban TikTok
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Disrupt 2020 early-bird savings extended until next week
Even the hard-charging world of early-stage startups has its share of procrastinators, lollygaggers, slow-pokes, wafflers and last-minute decision makers. If that’s your demographic, today is your lucky day.
You now have an extra week (courtesy of Saint Expeditus, the patron saint of procrastinators), to score early-bird savings to Disrupt 2020, which takes place September 14-18. Buy your pass before the new and final deadline — August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) — and save up to $300. Who says prayers (or secular entreaties) go unanswered?
Your pass opens the door to five days of Disrupt — the biggest, longest TechCrunch conference ever. Drawing thousands of attendees and hundreds of innovative early-stage startups from around the world, you won’t find a better time, place or opportunity to accelerate the speed of your business.
Here are four world-class reasons to attend Disrupt 2020.
World-class speakers. Hear and engage with leading voices in tech, business and investment across the Disrupt stages. Folks like Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, Ureeka’s Melissa Bradley and Slack’s Tamar Yehoshua — to name just a few. Here’s what you can see onstage so far.
World-class startups. Explore hundreds of innovative startups exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley — including the TC Top Picks. This elite cadre made it through our stringent screening process to earn the coveted designation, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more varied and interesting set of startups.
World-class networking. CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, simplifies connecting with founders, potential customers, R&D teams, engineers or investors. Schedule 1:1 video meetings and hold recruitment or extended pitch sessions. CrunchMatch launches weeks before Disrupt to give you more time to scout, vet and schedule.
World-class pitching. Don’t miss Startup Battlefield, the always-epic pitch competition that’s launched more than 900 startups, including big-time names like TripIt, Mint, Dropbox and many others. This year’s crop of startups promises to throw down hard for bragging rights and the $100,000 cash prize.
Need another reason to go? Take a page out of SIMBA Chain founder Joel Neidig’s playbook:
Our primary goal was to make people aware of the SIMBA Chain platform capabilities. Attending Disrupt is great way to get your name out there and build your customer base.
It’s time for all you last-minute lollygaggers to get moving and take advantage of this second, final chance to save up to $300. Buy your pass before August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
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The leading arguments for a Microsoft-TikTok tie-up
Here they are, ranked by how much weight we put behind them:
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Florida teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind celebrity Twitter hack
Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren announced today that he has filed 30 felony charges against a 17-year-old resident of Tampa, Florida, who was described by the state attorney’s office as “the mastermind of the recent hack of Twitter.”
The hack in question occurred earlier this month and involved high-profile Twitter users like Apple, Elon Musk, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, whose accounts all posted messages promoting a Bitcoin wallet and claiming, “All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled!”
The teen (we’re not identifying them because they’re a minor) allegedly made more than $100,000 through this cryptocurrency scam.
The state attorney’s office said that the teen was arrested earlier today as a result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, and that they will be tried as an adult. They face charges including one count of organized fraud (over $50,000) and 17 counts of communications fraud (over $300).
“These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they’re not the primary victims here,” Warren said in a statement. “This ‘Bit-Con’ was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that.”
As we reported at the time, the hack used Twitter’s own admin tool to gain access to high-profile accounts. Earlier today, the company updated its blog post outlining what it knows about the attack:
The social engineering that occurred on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack A successful attack required the attackers to obtain access to both our internal network as well as specific employee credentials that granted them access to our internal support tools. Not all of the employees that were initially targeted had permissions to use account management tools, but the attackers used their credentials to access our internal systems and gain information about our processes. This knowledge then enabled them to target additional employees who did have access to our account support tools. Using the credentials of employees with access to these tools, the attackers targeted 130 Twitter accounts, ultimately Tweeting from 45, accessing the DM inbox of 36, and downloading the Twitter Data of 7.
To prevent a similar attack from succeeding in the future, Twitter said it will be “accelerating several of our pre-existing security workstreams and improvements to our tools” and also improving the methods it uses to detect and stop inappropriate access to its internal systems.
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First US apps based on Google and Apple Exposure Notification System expected in ‘coming weeks’
Google Vice President of Engineering Dave Burke provided an update about the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) that Google developed in partnership with Apple as a way to help public health authorities supplement contact-tracing efforts with a connected solution that preserves privacy while alerting people of potential exposure to confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the update, Burke notes that the company expects “to see the first set of these apps roll out in the coming weeks” in the U.S., which may be a tacit response to some critics who have pointed out that we haven’t seen much in the way of actual products being built on the technology that was launched in May.
Burke writes that 20 states and territories across the U.S. are currently “exploring” apps that make use of the ENS system, and that together those represent nearly half (45%) of the overall American populace. He also shared recent updates and improvements made to both the Exposure Notification API as well as to its surrounding documentation and information that the companies have shared in order to answer questions from state health agencies, and hopefully make its use and privacy implications more transparent.
The ENS API now supports exposure notifications between countries, which Burke says is a feature added based on nations that have already launched apps based on the tech (that includes Canada, as of today, as well as some European nations). It’s also now better at using Bluetooth values specific to a wider range of devices to improve nearby device detection accuracy. He also says they’ve improved the reliability for both apps and debugging tools for those working on development, which should help public health authorities and their developer partners more easily build apps that actually use ENS.
Burke continues that there’s been feedback from developers that they’d like more detail about how ENS works under the covers, and so they’ve published public-facing guides that direct health authorities about test verification server creation, code revealing its underlying workings and information about what data is actually collected (in a de-identified manner) to allow for much more transparent debugging and verification of proper app functioning.
Google also explains why it requires that an Android device’s location setting be turned on to use Exposure Notifications — even though apps built using the API are explicitly forbidden from also collecting location data. Basically, it’s a legacy requirement that Google is removing in Android 11, which is set to be released soon. In the meantime, however, Burke says that even with location services turned off, no app that uses the ENS will actually be able to see or receive any location data.
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Delightree raises $3M to help franchise business owners simplify their operations
Owning one brick-and-mortar business seems complicated enough. But running multiple locations? For many owners, that’s a constant juggling act of phone calls, check lists and driving back and forth from store to store. In the middle of a pandemic, it gets all the more complex.
Delightree, a company out of the previous Alchemist Accelerator class, has raised $3 million to build a tool hyper-focused on helping owners of franchise businesses (think hotels, gyms, restaurant chains, etc.) take their operations and workflows digital.
A big part of the idea with Delightree is to move much of what currently happens through pen-and-paper checklists over to smartphones, allowing franchise owners to know what’s going at their locations from afar. They digitize workflows like the daily store opening/closing procedures or maintenance routines, with employees checking boxes on their devices rather than a paper to-do list. If something gets missed along the way, Delightree can automatically ping the owner to let them know before it becomes an issue.
They’ll also help to automate and track things like onboarding new employees and staying prepared for inspections, while giving owners a centralized place to make team-wide announcements or contact employees.
Delightree evolved out of a previous company built by its co-founders, Madhulika Mukherjee and Tushar Mishra. They’d been working on Survaider, a tool that monitored customer feedback across social media, review sites, etc., and turned that feedback into actionable to-do lists.
“When we were piloting it, our customers started saying: ‘can we create our own tasks? Or can I tell something to my employees through this?’ ” Mishra told me. “It was just such an obvious problem, so we started building Delightree.”
Delightree co-founders Tushar Mishra and Madhulika Mukherjee
The team has also been working on a feature they call Delightcomply, which helps stores stay up to date on the latest CDC guidelines for businesses operating through the pandemic, and to automatically share compliance details with potential customers. A business could use Delightcomply to publicly outline the steps it’s taking to keep employees/customers safe, for example, with the listing automatically updated to show the status of each task.
Delightree is currently working directly with each new customer to help them through the initial setup — specifically, to help franchisees take the standard operating procedures they receive directly from the brand owners and turn them into Delightree workflows. They’re still working out their exact pricing model, but say that they charge on a per-location-per-month basis, with pricing varying depending on the size/complexity of the business. They’ve set up a waitlist for anyone interested.
This $3 million seed round was funded by Accel Partners, Emergent Ventures, Brainstorm Ventures, Axilor Ventures and Alchemist. As part of the deal, Emergent partner Anupam Rastogi has joined Delightree’s board of directors.
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Report: Microsoft in talks to buy TikTok’s US business from China’s ByteDance
President Trump has plans to order China’s ByteDance, the owner of hit social video app TikTok, to divest from the company, according to new reporting from Bloomberg. The app is increasingly a target of U.S. security concerns over its Chinese ownership.
After the initial news, reports bubbled up that Microsoft is in talks to buy the Chinese social network, which is potentially valued at $50 billion and has a massive footprint in the U.S. and beyond. TikTok itself is not available in China and Chinese users instead use Douyin, a similar ByteDance-owned app specific to the country.
While little is known about what such a sale could mean or if the president would really play any role, the event would send huge waves through the tech world. TikTok is one of the only meaningful outside competitors for U.S.-based social networks like YouTube and Facebook.
It’s also not clear if the sale would somehow spin out the company’s U.S. business or if TikTok’s broad international operations would remain intact.
TikTok knows it’s in trouble in the U.S. At a time when even American tech companies are under fire from regulators, the company desperately needs to alleviate government concerns about its Chinese ownership. TikTok made a big strategic move in that direction this May, hiring Disney executive Kevin Mayer on as CEO of TikTok and COO of ByteDance.
It would certainly be strange timing were an American tech giant to purchase TikTok: On Wednesday, a Congressional committee held a high-profile hearing scrutinizing tech’s biggest mergers and acquisitions. The White House declined to comment on the report when contacted by TechCrunch.
Although its big tech peers Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon were subject to four-plus hours of Congressional scrutiny Wednesday, Microsoft was not asked to attend. Unlike those companies, Microsoft has grappled with antitrust action by the U.S. government before. Microsoft’s primary focus on enterprise rather than consumer business likely also steered regulators away, though the TikTok deal could invite new attention unless it has some kind of special blessing from the federal government.
TikTok has come under increased government scrutiny recently, with the president expressing interest in banning the app outright in the U.S. This month, Joe Biden’s campaign asked its staffers to delete the app from both work and personal devices.
Some U.S. companies have also banned their employees from using the app over concerns about its Chinese ownership.
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