Google today announced it’s expanding its user choice billing pilot, which allows Android app developers to use other payment systems besides Google’s own. The program will now become available to new markets, including the U.S., Brazil and South Africa, and Bumble will now join Spotify as one of the pilot testers. Google additionally announced Spotify will now begin rolling out its implementation of the program starting this week.

The company had first announced its intention to launch a third-party billing option back in March of this year, with Spotify as the initial tester.

Since then, the program has steadily expanded. Last month, for example, Google invited other non-game developers to apply for the user choice billing program in select markets, including India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the European Economic Area (EEA). The company also introduced a similar policy for developers in the EEA region in July, but the new guidelines raised the commission discount from 3% to 4% for developers who opted in. With today’s expansion, user choice billing will be made available to 35 countries worldwide.

Google says it’s been working with Spotify to help develop the experience and now the streaming music service will begin to put the new features into action in supported markets. The experience could still change over time, Google warned, as this is still the early days of the pilot test.

In addition, Bumble has now joined Google to test user choice billing in its own app, with plans to roll out the options to users in select countries in the coming months.

Developers interested in adopting user choice billing have to follow certain UX guidelines set by Google that detail how to implement the feature in their apps. These guidelines currently require developers to display an information screen and a separate billing choice screen. The information screen only has to be shown to each user the first time they initiate a purchase, but the billing choice screen must be shown before every purchase, the rules state. There are other requirements around when and how to display the screens and how the user interface should appear.

With the launch, Spotify users on Android will see a new user interface that allows them to choose how they want to pay for their Spotify subscription (see image below.). For the first time, the two options — Google Play billing and Spotify billing — will appear side-by-side. If the user selects Google Play billing, they’ll be transitioned to the usual experience and will be able to track their subscription in the Google Play Store’s Subscription Center. If the user selects Spotify billing, they’ll then continue within Spotify’s own checkout process and user experience.

This test will become available in a few markets at first, then expand to others over the coming weeks, Spotify says.

“Spotify has been publicly advocating for platform fairness and expanded payment options for years. We believe that fair and open platforms enable better, frictionless consumer experiences that also empower developers to imagine, innovate, and thrive,” a Spotify blog post stated.

While the general terms offer a 4% reduction in commissions paid to Google when user choice billing is used, Spotify wouldn’t comment on its confidential deal with Google, but notes it meets the company’s standards of fairness. It’s unclear if the streamer has been offered more favorable terms as an early adopter.

These changes follow a period when the major app stores from Apple and Google have been under pressure from lawmakers and regulators in global markets to open up their app ecosystems. This includes pressure to give developers the ability to use third-party payment systems and allow developers to inform customers of other ways to pay, among other things.

In addition, some developers have taken to suing the app giants directly. In the U.S., for instance, Fortnite maker Epic Games sued both Apple and Google for their alleged monopolistic practices due to their restrictions around in-app payments and for the right to distribute apps and games directly to end users outside the official app stores. Dating app giant Match is suing Google as well. (Which makes Google’s choice to invite Bumble into the program that much more interesting!)

Other companies have been lobbying lawmakers for more app store openness, too, through organizations like the Coalition for App Fairness, which includes big-name developers like Epic Games, Spotify, Tile and others, including indie developers.

Google and Apple are also under investigation in various markets, with the Justice Department in the early stages of filing an antitrust suit against Apple and EU antitrust officials investigating the Play Store.

In a blog post, Google says the goal of its pilot is to “understand complexities involved in supporting user choice billing for developers and users in countries across the world while maintaining a safe and positive user experience.” The company has yet to say when it expects the pilot test to wrap.

Google Play to pilot third-party billing in new markets, including U.S.; Bumble joins Spotify as early tester by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/10/google-play-to-pilot-third-party-billing-in-new-markets-including-u-s-bumble-joins-spotify-as-early-tester/

CEO Andy Jassy is leading the review including the devices unit that encompasses Alexa and which has had an annual operating loss of $5 billion in some recent years, documents show.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-launched-a-cost-cutting-review-focused-on-unprofitable-business-units-11668094823?mod=rss_Technology

Last year, OpenAI announced the OpenAI Startup Fund, a tranche through which it and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in early-stage AI companies tackling major problems. Mum’s been the word since on which companies have received infusions from the Fund. But today, the OpenAI Startup Fund revealed that it led a $23.5 million investment in Mem, a work-focused app that taps AI to automatically organize notes.

The investment values Mem at $110 million post-money and brings the startup’s total raised to $29 million.

Co-founded by Kevin Moody and Dennis Xu, Mem differentiates itself from traditional note-taking apps by emphasizing “lightweight organization,” in Moody and Xu’s words. The workflow revolves around search and a chronological timeline, allowing users to attach topic tags, tag other users and add recurring reminders to notes.

Mem users can capture quick notes, send links and save images from anywhere using SMS, messaging apps and the platform’s mobile client. Collaboration features let teams share, edit and comment on notes and directly attach them to shared calendars for faster reference.

Mem’s search experience uses AI to search across notes, aiming to understand which notes might be most relevant in a given moment to a particular person. Moody and Xu say the platform is designed to augment knowledge workers in their typical responsibilities, like reading through pages of information, extracting the pieces relevant to a particular question and transforming the information into an answer or a report.

There’s no doubt knowledge-seeking tasks are time-consuming. According to Gartner, professionals spend 50% of their working hours searching for information and on average take 18 minutes to locate a file (albeit the veracity of metrics like these has been challenged over the years). One source estimates that document disorganization costs businesses $3,900 per employee each year in productivity losses, making Mem an attractive proposition if the tech works as advertised.

“The number one thing we hear from the organizations we talk to is the desire to be able to marry their vast troves of proprietary knowledge with … generative AI models — to support use cases that range from conducting research to writing to selling and beyond,” Moody and Xu told TechCrunch in an email interview. “The magic of Mem is that we bring together your own private and proprietary data along with state-of-the-art generative language models to unlock truly personalized, factual outputs. We combine knowledge sources across the individual, team and organizational levels, leading to significantly better performance across the board.”

Mem recently launched Mem It for Twitter, which allows users to save threads, get AI-generated summaries of their contents and see suggestions for similar tweets. It’s also continuing to refine Mem X, Mem’s built-in work assistant, with new features like Smart Write and Smart Edit, which leverages AI to generate text based on a prompt, summarize files, generate titles for documents and let users use natural language commands to edit or format text.

Mem’s AI-powered writing tools, which are launching in preview soon.

The plan for the foreseeable future is to increasingly lean into these sorts of AI-powered experiences, Moody and Xu say, with support from OpenAI through the OpenAI Startup Fund. OpenAI Startup Fund participants receive early access to new OpenAI systems and Azure resources from Microsoft in addition to capital.

“OpenAI is obviously leading the wave of technological revolutions that we are riding,” Moody and Xu said. “This makes the OpenAI Startup Fund the ideal partner for what we’re building — for both the technical expertise and strategic guidance they bring to the table.”

OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap, who also manages the OpenAI Startup Fund, added in an emailed statement: “Mem uses powerful AI to make knowledge workers more productive by removing the tedium and drudgery of organizing and accessing information, ultimately allowing people to focus on the parts of their work that matter. Their vision aligns squarely with our goal at the OpenAI Startup Fund to accelerate companies using AI to enhance productivity and, more broadly, human potential.”

Mem competes with a number of companies seeking to tackle the same knowledge-finding and notes-organizing challenges. In enterprise search, there’s Glean, which recently raised $100 million in a venture equity round. On the knowledge management side, Atlassian’s wiki-like collaborative workspace Confluence and Notion, which was valued at $2 billion in 2020, still dominate.

But Moody and Xu argue that 16-employee Mem has an advantage in that it’s “self-organizing,” ostensibly resulting in less manual curation and labor. While they declined to reveal Mem’s revenue or the names of any major customers, they assert that Mem is successful, owing to its AI-driven tech.

“We’re confident in our unique approach to self-organizing and generative knowledge management. … Our personalized machine learning models not only help knowledge workers stay organized automatically, but also go beyond simply helping find things — we actually help people do their work,” Moody and Xu said. “The shift to remote work has made effective, asynchronous knowledge sharing more important than ever, and the market slowdown has caused companies to focus on efficiency. Our AI-assisted knowledge work saves people time, and the rapid improvement in large language models gives us a further tailwind.”

OpenAI leads $23.5M round in Mem, an AI-powered note-taking app by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/10/ai-powered-note-taking-app-mem-raises-23-5m-openai/

Following this morning’s debut of the Sparrow bin picking robot, Amazon just unveiled MK30, the latest iteration of its delivery drone. The system is the successor to the MK27-2, which is set to debut limited deliveries to residents in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas.

The MK30, which is set for a 2024 debut, is both smaller and lighter than the earlier version and able to withstand harsher temperatures and a broader range of weather conditions. Another key element here is making things quieter. Drone noise has been one of the most anticipated complaints about bringing these systems into residential settings.

The system maintains the same basic hexacopter foundation as its predecessor — a different tact that the fixed wing systems deployed by the likes of Wing.

Amazon writes,

Reducing the noise signature of our drones is an important engineering challenge our team is working on. Our drones fly hundreds of feet in the air, well above people and structures. Even when they descend to deliver packages, our drones are generally quieter than a range of sounds you would commonly hear in a typical neighborhood. Prime Air’s Flight Science team has created new custom-designed propellers that will reduce the MK30’s perceived noise by a further 25%. That’s a game-changer we’re very excited about.

Also on-board are new safety systems designed to avoid a wide range of different obstacles, from fellow drones to trees to people and pets. “While it’s impossible to eliminate all risks from flying, we take a proven aerospace approach to design safety into our system,” the company writes. “As always, our newest drone will go through rigorous evaluation by national aerospace authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration to prove its safety and reliability.”

Pictured: Amazon’s previous model

The acknowledgement of risk is important here. The truth is as these things become more common, so too, will accident reports. Amazon’s delivery drones have been through their share of ups and downs (so to speak), but the program appears to have survived some wide ranging cuts from CEO Andy Jassy – the same may not apply to the company’s latest mile Scout delivery robot, however.

Amazon: A drone being tested in a wind tunnel

“[T]o sustainably deliver a vast selection of items in under an hour, and eventually within 30 minutes, at scale,” Amazon writes, “drones are the most effective path to success.”

Plenty of skepticism remains around the efficacy so such programs, of course. Amazon, however, isn’t alone in better big on drone deliver — one baby step at a time. Alphabet’s Wing program recently announced a deal with Door Dash for food deliveries in Logan, Australia.

Amazon Prime Air VP David Carbon discussed the company’s ambitions thusly at today’s event,

A demonstrated, targeted level of safety that is validated by regulators and a magnitude safer than driving to the store. Delivering 500 million packages by drone, annual by the end of this decade. Servicing millions of customers, operating in highly populated, suburban areas such as Seattle, Boston and Atlanta. Flying in an uncontrolled space autonomously.

Amazon previews its new delivery drone, the MK30 by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/10/this-is-amazons-new-delivery-drone-the-mk30/

Waymo has opened up its fully driverless ride-hail service in downtown Phoenix to members of the general public. Previously, the company had only been operating a commercial service with no safety driver behind the wheel for participants in its “trusted tester” program.

The expansion in Phoenix is yet another sign of Waymo’s accelerated push towards commercialization. It comes a day after Waymo secured its driverless deployment permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which allows Waymo to charge for autonomous services, like delivery, in San Francisco. More importantly, it’s a prerequisite to securing the California Public Utilities Commission’s own driverless deployment permit, which Waymo needs to operate a commercial robotaxi service with no human safety operator in the city.

Waymo’s service in downtown Phoenix will mirror the one it has operated in Chandler, Arizona since 2020. It will be a paid rider-only service that’s available 24/7 to anyone who downloads the app and hails a ride Waymo’s service area. Waymo said this is an important step as it plans to expand the service to even more of the downtown area in coming months.

Earlier this month, Waymo also launched rides, with a driver in the front seat, to Phoenix’s airport from the city’s downtown. The service is currently only available to trusted testers, but will likely expand using the same recipe Waymo has used throughout its many expansions — Waymo will probably next test fully driverless rides to the airport with employees before opening that up to trusted testers, and then finally to members of the public. Waymo did not confirm or deny this roadmap.

Waymo did not say how many of its fleet of Jaguar I-Pace’s would be dedicated to the commercial ramp in Phoenix, but a spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is ready to meet what it projects to be a “healthy demand” for a 24/7 autonomous ride-hailing service downtown.

Now anyone can hail a Waymo robotaxi in downtown Phoenix by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/10/now-anyone-can-hail-a-waymo-robotaxi-in-downtown-phoenix/

A dual Russian and Canadian national linked to the LockBit ransomware operation has been arrested over his alleged involvement in attacks targeting critical infrastructure and large industrial groups worldwide.

Mikhail Vasiliev, 33, was arrested in Ontario, Canada on October 26 following an investigation led by the French National Gendarmerie with the help of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, the FBI, and the Canadian Royal Canadian Mounted Police. During the arrest, police seized eight computers, 32 external hard drives, and €400,000 in cryptocurrencies, Europol said.

The arrest follows a similar action in Ukraine in October last year when a joint international law enforcement operation led to the arrest of two of his accomplices.

Europol says Vasiliev, described as “one of the world’s most prolific ransomware operators,” was one of its high-value targets due to his involvement in numerous high-profile ransomware cases. The EU police agency added that he is known for trying to extort victims with ransom demands between €5 to €70 million.

A separate press release from the Department of Justice notes that LockBit has claimed at least 1,000 victims in the United States and has extracted tens of millions of dollars in actual ransom payments from their victims.

Vasiliev is awaiting extradition to the United States, where is charged with conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison. 

“Yesterday’s successful arrest demonstrates our ability to maintain and apply relentless pressure against our adversaries,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “The FBI’s persistent investigative efforts, in close collaboration with our federal and international partners, illustrates our commitment to using all of our resources to ensure we protect the American public from these global cyber threat actors.”

Brett Callow, a ransomware expert and threat analyst at Emisosft, tells TechCrunch that Vasiliev’s arrest could signal the end of the LockBit operation “as other cybercriminals will lose confidence in the integrity of the operation.

“Unfortunately, the group will probably rebrand, but this is nonetheless a significant arrest,” Callow added. “Vasiliev could well lead law enforcement to others involved in the operation.”

Specific victims targeted by the suspected LockBit operator were not named by Europol. However, France’s involvement in the operation suggests Vasiliev could be linked to a recent attack on French aerospace and defense group Thales.

LockBit, a prominent ransomware operation that’s previously claimed attacks on tech manufacturer Foxconn, U.K. health service vendor Advanced, and IT giant Accenture, added Thales to its leak site on October 31. The group claimed to have published data stolen from the company today, which it describes as “very sensitive” and “high risk” in nature. Contents of the data leak include commercial documents, accounting files and customer files, according to LockBit, though the files had not been published at the time of publication.

“As far as customers are concerned, you can approach the relevant organizations to consider taking legal action against this company that has greatly neglected the rules of confidentiality,” a message on the LockBit leak site reads.

Thales spokesperson Cedric Leurquin did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

LockBit also claims to have today leaked 40 terabytes of data stolen from German automotive giant Continental, and samples of the data suggest that the gang has accessed technical documents and source code. Though a ransom demand was not explicitly stated, the ransomware gang’s leak page claims to offer access to the full tranche of stolen data for $50 million.

Continental spokesperson Marc Siedler told TechCrunch that the company’s investigation into the incident has revealed that “attackers were also able to steal some data from the affected IT systems,” but refused to say what types of data were stolen or how many customers and employees have been affected.

Police arrest suspected LockBit operator as the ransomware gang spills new data by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/10/police-arrest-suspected-lockbit-operator-as-the-ransomware-gang-spills-new-data/