Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.
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Facebook and Instagram are under formal investigation in the European Union over child protection concerns, the Commission announced Thursday. The proceedings follow a raft of requests for information to parent entity Meta since the bloc’s online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), started applying last August. The development could be significant as the formal […]
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The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.
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Zypsy, a design firm with a track record of helping early-stage startups, has launched a new and somewhat unique venture investment program.
It will be offering 10 startups up to $100,000 of brand and product design services, spanning 8 to 10 weeks of engagement, for no cash payment. Instead startups will pay by issuing Zypsy 1% equity of their companies via a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity). There is one potential gotcha: If a startup needs more work than outruns that cap, it will need to pay for it. “After the initial 8 to 10 weeks program, we work on a retainer with cash depending on the further project needs,” Kaz Tamai, co-founder and CEO of Zypsy, told TechCrunch.
This type of work-for-equity arrangement isn’t unheard of, particularly in the design world, but Zypsy has particular bona fides. Its founding team hails from global design firms and tech companies, including IDEO, Fantasy, Meta, and Saatchi & Saatchi. The company is profitable, with an annual revenue run rate of $3.2 million and $250,000 in annual net cash flow, the company says.
Zypsy can help startups with brand strategy, logo, websites, product design, app interface and marketing content. The outfit believes that a fledgling startup can scale up and rise from obscurity by combining design expertise and investment support.
The startup plans to work with 10 startups for the upcoming design capital cohort, Tamai said, adding that it mainly works with early-stage startups via selective referrals from founders or venture capitalists. It focuses on industries such as computing infrastructure, machine learning, AI, data analytics, cybersecurity, and the creator economy.
“Fundamentally, all startups are evaluated on four things: market, team, product, and traction; and founders are stretched thin, wearing many hats and seeking capital to drive those four elements,” Tamai said.
Zypsy has already added five startups to the first cohort of the design capital program (listed in alphabetical order):
The six-year-old design company has worked with more than 25 startups. The outfit initially began the design project for web3 founders. Given the interest it generated from the first client, Zypsy extended the program to a broader range of tech companies, Tamai told TechCrunch.
Before launching its official Design Capital Program, its previous clients via pilot tests included Cortex, a startup building an internal developer portal that helps engineering teams build better software at scale; Captions, an AI-powered video editing startup; and Robust Intelligence, an AI startup that helps businesses protect their AI models from security and operational risks; and Anyplace, a hospitality startup.
Zypsy does not own stakes of the clients via pilot projects, Tamai noted. “They are ‘cash-based clients, not an ‘equity-based portfolios’ like five companies we mentioned in the first design capital program,” he said.
At the moment, the company doesn’t have plans to grow into an accelerator or an investment firm, Tamai noted. “Our mission is to partner with exceptional founders and collaborate towards the next $1 billion in delta value, or valuation growth, through creative excellence,” Tamai said.
In 2023, Zypsy raised $3 million to establish Design Capital. Investors included 1kx, Lattice, founders from Japanese e-commerce company Mercari and web3 company Cega, angel investors like CDO at Rakuten, and the head of investment at SoftBank Vision Fund.
The European Union has opened a second formal investigation into TikTok, announcing Monday that it suspects the video sharing platform of breaking the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), an online governance and content moderation framework.
The Commission also said it’s minded to impose interim measures that could force the company to suspend access to the TikTok Lite app in the EU while it investigates concerns the app poses mental health risks to users. Although the EU has given TikTok until April 24 to argue against the measure — meaning the app remains accessible for now.
The development shows the EU cracking down on a product launch it deems risky where it can show a platform has not followed expected procedure.
Penalties for confirmed violations of the DSA can reach up to 6% of global annual turnover. So ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, could face hefty fines if EU enforcers do end up deciding it has broken the law.
While the Commission hasn’t yet confirmed any breaches of the DSA this is the second probe it’s opened on TikTok after announcing an (ongoing) investigation into multiple aspects of its DSA compliance back in February. Since December X has also been under investigation over a range of DSA compliance concerns.
The EU’s first TikTok probe covers multiple issues including the protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers and the risk management of addictive design and harmful content. Hence it said the latest investigation will specifically focus on TikTok Lite, a version of the video sharing platform which launched earlier this month in France and Spain and includes a mechanism that allows users to earn points for doing things like watching or liking videos.
Points earned through TikTok Lite can be exchanged for things like Amazon gift vouchers or TikTok’s own digital currency for gifting to creators. The Commission is worried this so-called “task and reward” feature could negatively impact the mental health of young users by “stimulating addictive behavior”.
The EU wrote that the second probe will focus on TikTok’s compliance with the DSA obligation to conduct and submit a risk assessment report prior to the launch of the “Task and Reward Lite” program, with a particular focus on negative effects on mental health, including minors’ mental health. It also said it will look into measures taken by TikTok to mitigate those risks.
In a press release announcing the action, the EU said ByteDance failed to produce a risk assessment about the feature which it had asked to see last week — when it gave the company 24 hours to produce the document.
TikTok is regulated under the strictest regime of the DSA, which applies to around half a dozen larger platforms. This extra layer of risk mitigation requirements obliges them to proactively identify and mitigate systemic risks — such as addictive design that could harm users’ mental health.
The EU’s suspicion is ByteDance failed to do this before going ahead and launching TikTok Lite in the two EU markets: Since it failed to submit the risk assessment paperwork on April 18 the Commission wrote that it suspects a “prima facie infringement of the DSA”.
The regulation bakes in a regime of smaller fines for failures to produce requested information on time, as appears to have happened here. ByteDance could therefore face a penalty of up to 1% of its total annual income or worldwide turnover and periodic penalties up to 5% of average daily income or worldwide annual turnover specifically for this type of DSA compliance failure.
Although the Commission has not confirmed whether it plans to fine TikTok for failing to produce the risk assessment document on time as yet.
ByteDance was contacted for a response to the EU’s latest DSA enforcement. But as of press time it had not responded. Update: A TikTok spokesperson said: “We are disappointed with this decision — the TikTok Lite rewards hub is not available to under 18s, and there is a daily limit on video watch tasks. We will continue discussions with the Commission.”
It’s worth noting the EU’s press release raises specific concerns about “the suspected absence of effective age verification mechanisms on TikTok”, which is an area the Commission’s first TikTok investigation is looking into.
Commenting on the Commission’s enforcement action in a statement, Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the EU Internal Market, wrote: “Endless streams of short and fast-paced videos could be seen as fun, but also expose our children to risks of addiction, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, low attention spans… With our first DSA non-compliance case against TikTok still ongoing, the company has launched TikTok Lite which financially rewards extra screen time. We suspect TikTok ‘Lite’ could be as toxic and addictive as cigarettes ‘light’. Unless TikTok provides compelling proof of its safety, which it has failed to do until now, we stand ready to trigger DSA interim measures including the suspension of TikTok Lite feature which we suspect could generate addiction. We will spare no effort to protect our children.”
This report was updated with comment from TikTok; and to confirm the platform’s approach to age verification is being investigated by the EU.
The second half of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort presented on Thursday, once again bringing dozens and dozens of new startups before a chunk of the venture investing community. As we did on Wednesday, a number of the TechCrunch crew watched the entire run of presentations, picking out a handful of favorites to highlight.
Enjoy our favorites from the second round of Y Combinator demos while we go out and buy another few pots of coffee. To work!
Five months ago, Rooms, a 3D design platform made by ex-Google employees, launched its beta version on the App Store. Today, the free iOS app is getting a big update that will bring a wave of new discovery-first features, including an activity feed, an explore page, the ability to browse by category, and more.
Rooms is an interior decorating app that falls under the cozy game category. Players can build and code intricate 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of over 7,500 digital items. Users can customize items by editing code with Lua, the programming language that’s also used in Roblox Studio.
Rooms touts a quarter of a million registered users, up from 40,000 in 2023. The user growth is a notable accomplishment for a scrappy three-person team that released its web platform less than a year ago.
“When we launched last November, it was in some ways an experiment to see if this idea we had would resonate with people,” co-founder Jason Toff told TechCrunch. “We were pleasantly surprised that people not only used it, but that they also made rooms a lot, [and] a lot better rooms than we expected.”
Toff previously worked in Google’s AR/VR division. His former colleague Bruno Oliveira is also on the founding team, as well as Nick Kruge, who has experience working at Uber, YouTube, and Smule.
At launch, the mobile app only had three TikTok-style vertical feeds to choose from: a “For You” feed, Editor’s Picks, and a Recent feed. However, as Rooms continues to grow, the founders want to give its users a way to easily discover other user-generated rooms and praise creators for their designs.
With today’s launch of “Rooms 2.0,” the company added a Trending feed to the home screen, helping boost popular creators and their most-liked contributions. Plus, users can scroll through over a dozen new categories, including “Games,” “Art,” “Fantasy,” “Nature,” and “Weird.” There’s also “Tribute,” a selection of rooms inspired by popular IPs, such as Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda, Hello Kitty, and others. The feeds were previously curated but now it’s added algorithms that control the order of rooms that appear in the feeds.
There’s also a new Explore page with even more ways to discover, such as exploring user profiles, the top games, and all-time favorites.
Additionally, the app is introducing “Honeycomb View,” a hexagonal grid that provides a new way to browse multiple rooms at once. Users can tap on different rooms and zoom in or zoom out to see fewer or more designs.
“Our lack of discovery became a hindrance… Everyone wants their work to be seen. We also heard from creators that they like [discovering] other people’s rooms… I think it will help a lot to have not just one surface, but dozens of new [feeds] for content to be discovered,” Toff said.
Rooms’ new Activity tab lets creators track likes and comments, along with when their room is “remixed” or posted. Each room has an icon at the bottom to indicate its total number of remixes.
The Remix feature, which allows people to use someone’s design as a template, was also updated to detect copycat rooms, which hopefully prevents creators from imitating someone’s design that took hours to make. (According to the company, 1 in 8 users have spent over two hours editing their rooms.)
Under the hood, the team implemented a mesh optimization method (which minimizes the complexity of 3D objects) to make large rooms render up to 20 times faster.
The majority of the updates are on the iOS app, but Rooms is adding the new categories and speed improvements to its web version.
In the future, Rooms is considering an AI-powered tool to make coding easier on the app. The feature would “look at your code and tell you where there are obvious mistakes,” Toff shared.
As TechCrunch previously reported, the company was exploring a generative AI feature to help with designing rooms, including the ability to generate images for the walls and floors of a room. Toff said they’re not actively working on that feature due to the high costs. However, in the future, Rooms may offer a premium subscription offering but the company is waiting until the app gets more traction.
Rooms will launch a desktop app on Steam in a few months. The company is also considering an Android app but isn’t making it a top priority.
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8 million (or in local currency: PLN 31,850,141), also calls out the e-commerce giant for deceptive design elements which may inject a false sense of urgency into the purchasing process and mislead shoppers about elements like product availability and delivery dates.
The country’s consumer and competition watchdog, the UOKiK, has been looking into complaints about Amazon’s sales practices since September 2021, following complaints from shoppers, including some who did not receive their purchases. The authority opened a formal investigation into Amazon’s practices in February 2023. Wednesday’s sanction is the conclusion of that probe.
The UOKiK found consumers who ordered products on Amazon could have their purchases subsequently cancelled by the tech giant as it does not treat the moment of purchase as the conclusion of a sales contract, despite sending consumers confirmation of their order — even after consumers have paid for the product. For Amazon, the conclusion of a sales contract only occurs once it has sent information about the actual shipment.
In a press release detailing the enforcement, it said Amazon failed to clearly communicate this salient detail to shoppers, finding it only provided the information at “the last stage of purchase”. It also found the information was sometimes “difficult” for consumers to access, noting for example Amazon could use a grey font on a white background in text displayed at the very bottom of a page — a classic example of so-called ‘dark pattern design‘.
The UOKiK contrasts that deceptive design choice with suggestive messaging Amazon shows to shoppers on sales buttons — which read “Buy now” or “Proceed to finalize the purchase” — which it said imply that by ordering the product the shopper is concluding a contract with Amazon. Which is not, in fact, the case.
“Thus, Amazon misleads consumers as to the moment of conclusion of the sales contract,” the authority wrote [in Polish; this is a machine translation]. “For many people, this can also have negative consequences: The consumer does not receive the product, so he cannot use it, he loses the opportunity to buy at an attractive price that may no longer apply, and his money is frozen until he returns it.”
Some of the complaints it received also found information about how to cancel an order may be provided long after it was placed, with the UOKiK citing the case of cancellations of e-book reader orders where the critical detail was not provided for a month.
Its enforcement also calls out Amazon for using deceptive design to encourage shoppers to click buy by presenting misleading information about product availability and delivery windows — such as by listing how many items were in stock to be purchased and providing a countdown clock to order an item in order to get it on a particular delivery date. Its investigation found Amazon does not always meet these deadlines for orders, nor ship products immediately as they may be out of stock despite claims to the contrary shown to consumers.
“Amazon treats the data it provides on availability and shipping date as indicative but the way it is presented does not indicate this,” the UOKiK noted, adding: “Consumers can only find out about this in the terms of sale on the platform.”
Commenting in a statement, the UOKiK’s president, Tomasz Chróstny, said: “Information about product availability and its fast shipping is very valuable for consumers and for many people it may be the main reason why they make a purchase decision. However, such information cannot be a lure. If the entrepreneur provides a specific delivery date, he or she must meet it. This practice by Amazon is classified as so-called dark patterns because it uses pressure to make the consumer order the product as soon as possible.”
While Amazon does offer a delivery guarantee — offering a refund if items do not ship within the stated time — the authority found it failed to provide consumers with information about the rules of this service before placing an order. It only offers details at the order summary stage. And then only “if the consumer decides to read the subsequent links specifying delivery details.”
Shoppers who did not follow the link to read more may not have been aware of their right to apply for and receive a refund from Amazon if there is a delay in shipment. It also found the e-commerce giant failed to provide information about the “Delivery Guarantee” in the purchase confirmation sent to shoppers.
Amazon was contacted for comment on the sanction but at the time of writing it had not responded. It has the option to appeal.
Update: Amazon’s press office in Poland has now responded with a statement, confirming it will appeal. The company also writes:
Fast and reliable delivery across a wide selection of products is a top priority for us, and Amazon.pl has millions of items available with fast and free Prime delivery. Since launching Amazon.pl in 2021, we have continuously invested and worked hard to provide customers with a clear, reliable delivery promise at check out, and while the vast majority of our deliveries arrive on time, customers can contact us in the rare event that they experience a delay or order cancellation, and we will make it right.
Over the last year, we have collaborated with the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK), and proposed multiple voluntary amendments to continue to improve the customer experience on Amazon.pl. We strictly follow legal standards in all countries where we operate and we strongly disagree with the assessment and penalty issued by the UOKiK. We will appeal this decision.
NASA has given three space companies the chance to design the next-generation moon buggy — but only one design will go to space. Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab are developing rugged vehicles intended for astronauts to drive around on the lunar surface, from which NASA may choose as early as next year.
The three teams will now enter into a 12-month “feasibility phase” that will culminate in a preliminary design review. At that point, there will be a subsequent competitive request for proposals, where the trio of companies will compete for a demonstration task order, NASA officials explained during a press conference on Wednesday.
At that point, a final awardee will be selected. The chosen company will be responsible not only for designing the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) but also for launching and landing it on the moon prior to the Artemis V mission, which is currently slated for no earlier than 2029.
NASA declined to specify the dollar value of the awards, though Intuitive Machines said in a statement that it was awarded a $30 million contract. The total potential value of all the task orders over the next 13 years is $4.6 billion.
The three teams are also keeping specifications, like range or battery technology, close to the chest, though NASA specified that the rover would have to have an incredible 10-year life span and be capable of carrying two suited astronauts.
Intuitive Machines is leading a team that includes AVL, Boeing, Michelin, and Northrop Grumman; Lunar Outpost is leading the “Lunar Dawn” team that includes Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Goodyear and MDA Space. Astrolab is joined by Axiom Space and Odyssey Space Research.
NASA lunar terrain vehicle. Image Credits: Intuitive Machines
The awards are the latest to be doled out to private industry under the agency’s ambitious Artemis program, which seeks to eventually establish a permanent human presence on the moon. But in order to truly explore the surface, astronauts will need something to get around — and it will need to withstand the harsh environment of the lunar south pole, which is known for temperature extreme swings and very long nights.
“Think of it as a hybrid of the Apollo-style lunar rover that was driven by our astronauts and an uncrewed mobile science platform,” NASA’s Johnson Space Center director Vanessa Wyche said.
With the vehicles, astronauts will be able to transport scientific equipment, collect samples from the surface and travel farther than on foot, Jacob Bleacher, NASA’s chief exploration scientist, said. When astronauts are not on the moon, humans will be able to remotely operate the LTV, so it can continue to explore the region and even meet new astronaut crews when they arrive on the surface.
“With NASA’s Artemis campaign, we are building up the capabilities needed to establish a longer-term exploration and presence of the moon,” he said. “Where it will go, there are no roads. Its mobility will fundamentally change our view of the moon.”
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