Samsung Cloud deadline: Migrate your files now

The deadline for many Samsung customers to migrate their files away from the company's own-brand cloud storage service is fast approaching.

Previously, Samsung Cloud allowed users to store a range of data off-device, freeing up local storage for apps. But the company is now cutting back the service, withdrawing the ability to store anything but lightweight items, such as contacts, calendar items and notes.

The phased termination process has been divided into two streams, based on users' geographical location. Members of Group 1, which covers the UK, US, Australia and much of Europe, have until the end of the day to make use of an automated OneDrive migration tool that will do much of the heavy lifting.

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Samsung Cloud shutdown

Originally, Samsung had set a deadline of March 31 for members of Group 1 to shift their data away from Samsung Cloud, but decided to offer users an extra three months to make the necessary arrangements. However, there is no indication the company will offer another extension.

Members of Group 1 should already have received a notification prompting them to activate the automated OneDrive migration process. Doing so will not only transfer all Samsung Cloud files into OneDrive, but also expand the capacity of their account from 5GB to 20GB.

However, the expanded OneDrive storage offer will expire after one year. After that, users will either have to pay to increase their cloud storage capacity or transfer their data to an external hard drive, portable SSD or another cloud backup service.

If tonight's deadline is missed, Group 1 will have until September 30 to download their Samsung Cloud data to their device or computer manually and will not be able to claim additional OneDrive capacity. After this date has passed, all photos and files held in Samsung Cloud will be deleted outright and will no longer be recoverable.

Samsung customers that fall into Group 2, which covers much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, have been given a little more time to play with. These users have until September 30 to shift their date to OneDrive and until November 29 to perform a manual download.

• Here's our list of the best backup software right now

Motorola Edge 20 price, release date, and everything we know

The long-rumored Motorola Edge 20 and its siblings are Motorola’s newest flagships, with improved specs and cameras over its predecessors. Most surprising of all, they're already available to buy in some parts of the world after Motorola quietly launched them with little fanfare.

The standard Motorola Edge 20 launches with two other models: the premium Motorola Edge 20 Pro and the more affordable Motorola Edge 20 Lite. The Motorola Edge 20 range follows up on 2020’s Motorola Edge, Motorola Edge Plus, and (more or less) the Motorola One 5G, respectively.

All three phones have similar flagship appearances as their predecessors, with some notable changes – gone are the curved-edge displays, for instance, which gave the Edge phones their name. But all pack improved cameras and faster specs, with a large 6.7-inch Full HD OLED display and big batteries.

While we haven’t gotten our hands on the new phones yet, the specs list, availability, and prices have been announced – read on for what you can expect from Motorola’s next flagships. 

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next generation of Motorola Edge phones
• When will it be out? August 2021 in some regions
• How much will it cost? Multiple devices at various prices

Motorola Edge 20 price and availability

The Motorola Edge 20 release date varies between countries: the phone and its siblings were announced in July 2021 with planned availability sometime in August in select markets in Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Asia. Some or all of the phones will also be released in North America this fall (Q3 2021). 

The Motorola Edge 20 Lite is the most affordable model, and starts at €349 (around $415 / £299 / AU$565), with price increasing for higher-spec configurations. The Motorola Edge 20 comes in a single configuration and costs €499 / £429 (around $590 / AU$805). The Motorola Edge 20 Pro is the premium device in the range, and starts at €699 / £649 (around $829 / AU$1,129), with price increasing for higher-spec configurations.

Motorola Edge 20

(Image credit: Motorola)

The standard Motorola Edge 20 follows the Motorola Edge with a mid-range Snapdragon 778G processor, which isn't as powerful as the best phones on the market though it fits the price. It only comes in a single configuration, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and comes in gray, white or green colors.

The OLED 6.7-inch display has a 144Hz refresh rate, and notably it doesn't curve at the edges, unlike its predecessor. But all three models have the same screen, more or less.

The Motorola Edge 20, along with the rest of the range, inherits the 108MP main camera from last year’s Motorola Edge Plus, which is a boon for the non-premium models. The Edge 20 shares its  ultra-wide camera with its Pro sibling, but the third snapper is a telephoto for 3x optical and 30x digital zoom, not the periscope of the Pro. 

We're dubious about the 4,000mAh battery, as that sounds a little on the small side, but the 30W charging is about standard for a device at this price.

Motorola Edge 20 Lite

(Image credit: Motorola)

This Motorola Edge 20 Lite phone has a price that positions it more like a Moto G phone than an Edge one, which could make it a serious value phone. 

The Edge 20 Lite uses an unspecified MediaTek chipset with 8GB of RAM and it's 5G-enabled – another bonus for affordable phones. The battery is 5,000mAh, which is nice and big, and the 30W charging from its siblings is here too.

The Edge 20 Lite has the same 6.7-inch OLED screen as its siblings, and it also has the same 108MP camera main, which is pretty surprising at this price. There's also an ultra-wide camera but it's not clear if there are other lenses.

Motorola Edge 20 Pro

(Image credit: Motorola)

The Motorola Edge 20 Pro is the premium phone of the line and has the best specs of its range, though not quite the top of the line – but they fit its affordable flagship price. The Pro packs the Snapdragon 870 chipset - notably not the top Snapdragon 888, though it's not that much weaker - as well as 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The Edge 20 Pro has a 6.7-inch OLED screen that supports HDR10+ and has a 144Hz refresh rate, which is rare for non-gaming phones (most max out at 120Hz). 

The Edge 20 Pro has a 108MP main camera as well as an ultra-wide and periscope camera, the latter of which has a 5x optical and up to 50x digital zoom. The handset also records 8K video.

The phone charges up to 30W, though we don't know the actual battery capacity - Motorola says it'll last 30 hours between charges but that doesn't tell us much.

The Edge 20 Pro comes in blue or white hues, though there's also third option that's a blue color coated in faux leather.

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Patch this WordPress plugin bug, thousands of site owners warned

The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team has discovered two separate vulnerabilities in a popular WordPress plugin used to change how download pages are displayed.

The plugin in question is called WordPress Download Manager and it has been installed on over 100,000 sites according to WordPress.org.

The first vulnerability can be exploited to achieve authenticated directory traversal according to Wordfence. While WordPress Download Manager had some protections in place to protect against directory traversal, they were far from sufficient. As a result, it was possible for a user such as a contributor with lower privileges to retrieve the contents of a site's wp-config.php file by adding a new download and performing a directory traversal attack.

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From here, upon previewing the download, the contents of the wp-config.php file would be visible in the page's source code. However, since the contents of the file were echoed out onto the page source, a user with author-level permissions could also upload a file with an image extension containing malicious JavaScript and set the contents of file[page_template] to the path of the uploaded file which could result in Stored Cross-Site Scripting.

Double extension attack

Before Wordfence discovered these two vulnerabilities, the team behind the WordPress Download Manager patched a vulnerability that allowed users to upload files with php4 extensions as well as other potentially executable files.

Although this patch protected many configurations, it only checked the very last file extension which made it possible for an attacker to carry out a “double extension” attack by uploading a file with multiple extensions like info.php.png.

The Wordfence Threat Intelligence Team responsibly disclosed its findings to the WordPress Download Manager team at the beginning of May and the plugin's developer released a patched version of the plugin the following day.

Still if you're a WordPress site owner that uses the plugin, it is highly recommended that you update to the latest version immediately to avoid falling victim to any attacks exploiting these two now patched vulnerabilities.

• We've also featured the best web hosting services

Should I buy Raycon earbuds? A look at the YouTube famous true wireless earbuds brand

You’ve probably heard of Raycon earbuds from YouTube, as many of the streaming site’s biggest names have at one time or another endorsed them for their great sound and even better prices. 

While that’s obviously paid sponsorship on behalf of Raycon, you can’t help but wonder what they’re really like and, more importantly, if they’re worth buying over other tried and true wireless earbuds from Sony, Samsung, LG, Amazon and Apple. 

To put them to the test, we reached out to Raycon to get a pair – their high-end active noise canceling The Work Earbuds. At $149.99 (around £100, AU$200), these cost as much as a pair of Apple AirPods or Sony WF-SP800N but come with a few extra features that might, on paper, make them feel like the better deal.

Let’s dive into the drawbacks and advantages of the earbuds – of which there are many – and then we’ll get into their pricing and specs, and close out with an overview of the company and how it got so popular. 

Should I buy a pair of Raycon earbuds? 

The reason you were likely drawn to the earbuds in the first place was because they seem like a great cheap alternative to the Apple AirPods or Google Pixel Buds – and if you’re only referring to the Everyday or Performance earbuds, you’d absolutely be right.

At just $79.99 (around £60, AU$100), the Raycon Everyday has great specs and an 8-hour battery life on-board. It also includes a wireless charging case that provides another 24 hours of use. They’re IPX6 water and splash-resistant, which makes them good for workouts, and users are typically wowed by their sound quality – which is pretty impressive for the price.

Moving a step up to the Raycon Performance earbuds, you get a slightly better fit thanks to the built-in wing that hooks into your outer ear and a better overall battery life with the case. They’re a bit more expensive than the Raycon Everyday earbuds at $110 (around £80, AU$150) but they seem like a better option if you’ve had problems with earbuds falling out during a workout.

Pictured: A woman wearing Raycon earbuds on a blue background. (Image credit: Raycon)

Last up is the highest-end Raycon The Work earbuds. They are certainly the most expensive of Raycon’s earbud lineup, and therefore they really have to offer the most for their sticker price. To help justify the cost, these are the only earbuds to feature active noise cancellation and stems to really give you that AirPods-style look. They come with memory foam eartips – a nice bonus – and use six microphones to offer good call quality (hence the reference to work in their name). 

The problem with the earbuds is that users sometimes report issues with connectivity – an issue we also had with our pair – and getting the fit just right. Having tested hundreds of earbuds over the years, Raycon’s The Work are some of the most finicky, even when you use the included foam tips that should conform nicely to your ear canal. Audio performance is good, however it requires a great fit to get that beefy bass response, something that’s tough to achieve when the buds don’t fit correctly. 

We’d recommend starting with the Performance earbuds and only stepping up to The Work if you absolutely need the active noise cancellation for your commute. Otherwise a good passive seal with the Performance buds will get you just as good of sound quality and we think you'll like them more than the Google Pixel Buds.

Raycon The Everyday Headphones (center) next to Raycon The Everyday Earbuds (left) and Raycon The Performance Earbuds (right). (Image credit: Raycon)

How are the Raycon Everyday Headphones? 

We didn’t lump them in with the earbuds because, well, they’re headphones, but we also got our hands on The Everyday Headphones to test out as well. 

What the headphones promise is active noise cancellation in a pair of over-ear headphones with the same sound signature as the earbuds. Raycon says they’ll last about 22 hours with ANC turned off but less when you’ve got it turned on. They’re also relatively cheap for over-ear noise-canceling headphones at only $99 (around £70, AU$135). 

So what’s not to like? Mostly they deliver on good sound, with surprisingly good stereo separation, but the sound spectrum definitely caters more to bass than anything else. The noise cancellation itself isn’t all that powerful, especially when stacked against the leaders in the space like Bose or Sony, and it doesn’t support any of the better audio codecs – you’re stuck with SBC and AAC. 

At their price, they’re seated nicely in the middle of the pack, but we wouldn’t recommend them over any of the best noise-canceling headphones from our guide.

Pictured: Ray J, American rapper turned entrepreneur and co-founder of Raycon.  (Image credit: Raycon)

What is Raycon? Is it a good company? 

Raycon is co-founded by Ray J, the American rapper turned reality TV star, alongside the other Ray, Ray Lee. The pair joined forces to create a wireless headphone company that aims to undercut the major players in the tech industry with more affordable options – though it currently only sells them in the US.

Raycon as an entity has been around since 2017, and rose in popularity thanks to its mix of celebrity endorsements and YouTube affiliates. That, coupled with its already low prices and even further discounts have really paved the way for its success amongst the bigger players. 

On its website, users give Raycon’s earbuds glowing reviews en masse and we found that largely to hold true with our testing, though many don’t mention the downsides of the earbuds. Overall, Raycon is trustable company that makes decent products – but, like every company, those products aren’t quite as perfect as they’re made out to be.

• Looking to cut the audio cable? Check out our guide to the best wireless earbuds

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3-compatible S Pen Pro could launch with Bluetooth

Details have finally leaked about a new, more advanced Samsung stylus, the S Pen Pro, which could be compatible with the display on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, expected to launch at Samsung Unpacked on August 11. 

The S Pen Pro isn’t a secret – Samsung itself revealed the stylus, suggesting it would launch with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. While that premium phone didn’t launch with the S Pen Pro, we hadn’t heard anything about it until earlier in July when a rumor linked it with the Z Fold 3. 

But the new information, tweeted out by leaker Chun (@chunvn8888), includes some crucial info that’s big if true: unlike the ‘dumb’ analog S Pen that launched with the S21 Ultra, the S Pen Pro could pack Bluetooth functionality like that in the S Pens that come with the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 Plus. Presumably, that means gesture controls and remote functionality. 

S Pen Pro:0.7 mm tip4096 pressure pointsCan be used with Z Fold3 without damaging the screenCharges via USB CAttaches magnetically with a few cases at the back of phonesPrice around 70 bucks in the UK? https://t.co/qed83EZ936 pic.twitter.com/IKLzXqA0KZJuly 27, 2021

See more

Per Chun’s tweet, the S Pen Pro will have the same 0.7mm tip and 4,096 pressure points as the S21 Ultra’s S Pen stylus, but it will also be usable on the Z Fold 3’s foldable display, manually charge via USB-C, and attach magnetically to the back of certain phone cases. Presumably, that won’t also mean wireless charging akin to the way the S Pen charges when clipped to the Tab S7 tablet, but we can hope. 

It’ll also be priced at “around 70 bucks in the UK,” which could mean either $70 (around £50) or £70 ( around $97). Either way, it’ll cost more than the standard S Pen’s $39.99 / £34 (roughly AU$50) price tag.

(Image credit: Aakash Jhaveri)

---

Analysis: Could the S Pen Pro make up for the Note 21’s cancellation? 

While we’d heard that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 would launch with S Pen stylus support, suggesting Samsung was positioning the foldable as a replacement of sorts for the Samsung Galaxy Note 21, a company executive recently confirmed the Z Fold 3 had officially replaced the stylus-packing phone, at least for the 2021 lineup. 

That may not have comforted Note fans, who probably aren’t looking forward to paying potentially twice the launch price of a Note 20 Plus to get stylus functionality in a foldable Z Fold 3 – not for a device that likely won’t have an S Pen slot, and especially to have a ‘dumb’ stylus like the one that came with the S21 Ultra.

But an S Pen Pro could sweeten that deal somewhat. When Samsung introduced it earlier this year, the Pro stylus looked larger and easier to handle, with what could be multiple buttons on it. Combined with the leaked perks, like Bluetooth and magnetic attachment to phone cases, the S Pen Pro might make the Z Fold 3 a bit more palatable to the productivity-minded Note fans – and maybe getting to use the foldable’s extensive screen as an S Pen canvas might make it more enticing, too.  

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Discord once again found to be hosting malware payloads

Cybersecurity researchers have once again witnessed Discord being used to host malicious payloads during an investigation into the increasing use of HTML smuggling.

A previous report from Sophos researchers showed the popular gaming-centric messaging platform has unwittingly emerged as the cybercriminals' ally as a means to host and distribute malware.

Now, researchers at Menlo Security deconstructing a new attack have also found threat actors using Discord for hosting malicious payloads.

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Named ISOMorph, the campaign uses HTML smuggling to drop the first stage malware through the web browser.

Attack the browser

The researchers explain that HTML smuggling helps deliver malware by effectively bypassing various network security solutions including sandboxes, legacy proxies, and firewalls. 

“We believe attackers are using HTML Smuggling to deliver the payload to the endpoint because the browser is one of the weakest links without network solutions blocking it,” notes Menlo Security in a blog post analyzing the ISOMorph campaign.

HTML Smuggling was also used in the most recent spear-phishing campaign by the Nobelium group, the threat actor which perpetrated the SolarWinds supply-chain attack.

Popular with web developers as a means to optimize file downloads, threat actors use HTML smuggling to bypass standard perimeter security, explains Menlo Security.

Once it’s in place, the dropper fetches the malicious payload and installs remote access trojans (RATs) that allow the attacker to use the infected machine for their illegitimate purposes.

• Protect your devices with these best antivirus software

For tech firms, the risk of not preparing for leadership changes is huge

Jason Dressel Contributor

Jason Dressel is president of History Factory, which helps companies use their history and heritage to enhance and transform strategy, positioning, marketing and communication.

Every week over the past three and a half years, an average of three CEOs have exited tech companies in the U.S. That tally is higher — in good times and bad — than in any of the other 26 for-profit sectors tracked by executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. You’d think tech companies should be the paradigm of how to prep for leadership transitions, since they operate in such a constant state of flux.

They’re far from it.

A change of command is one of the most delicate moments in the life cycle of any organization. If mishandled, the transition from one CEO to the next can result in a loss of market valuation, momentum and focus, as well as key personnel, customers and partners. It may even become that turning point when an organization begins to slide toward irrelevance.

With so much at stake, 84% of tech execs agree that succession planning is more important than ever because of today’s fast-changing business environment, according to our new survey of corporate America’s leaders. Seven out of 10 survey respondents agreed that tech companies face more scrutiny than other multinationals during a transition.

84% of tech execs agree that succession planning is more important than ever because of today’s fast-changing business environment.

Yet we found that tech execs appear just as unprepared for C-suite transitions as their peers in other sectors. Three out of five respondents said their companies don’t have a documented plan to handle a leadership change, even though, by that same ratio, they acknowledge that a documented plan is the biggest determinant in seamless transitions.

The findings may not be troubling if these respondents were millennial startup founders, years from leaving their companies. The executives we polled, however, hail from 160 companies that have been in business for a minimum of 15 years — 35 are tech companies, the largest industry cohort in the survey.

The smallest companies have at least 1,500 employees and $500 million in annual revenue, while the largest have head counts of over 500,000 and revenue upward of $100 billion. They have been around long enough to understand — and put into place — risk management and crisis planning, including what happens should their leaders fall victim to the proverbial milk truck.

Tech execs should be more rigorous about succession planning for one important reason: institutional memory. Tech firms generally are younger than other companies of a similar size, which partly explains why the median age of S&P 500 companies plunged to 33 years in 2018 from 85 years in 2000, according to McKinsey & Co.

These enterprises clearly have accomplished a lot in their short lives, but in their haste, most have not captured their history, unlike their longer-lived peers in other sectors. Less than half of these tech firms, in fact, have formally recorded their leader’s story for posterity. That puts them at a disadvantage when, inevitably, they will be required to onboard newcomers to their C-suites.

It’s best to record this history well before the intense swirl of a leadership transition begins. Crucially, it will help the incoming and future generations of leadership understand critical aspects of its track record, the lessons learned, culture and identity. It also explains why the organization has evolved as it has, what binds people together and what may trigger resistance based on previous experience. It’s as much about moving forward as looking back.

Most execs in our poll get it, with 85% saying a company’s history can be a playbook for new executives to learn and prepare for upcoming challenges and opportunities. “History is the mother of innovation for any type of company,” one respondent said. “History,” writes another, “includes the roadmap to failures as well as successes.”

But this documented history cannot be a hagiography of the departing CEO. Too often, outgoing execs spend their last years in office constructing their own trophy cases. Even as they conceded their own flat-footedness on transition planning, the majority of execs said they have already taken steps to create and reinforce their personal legacies — two-thirds said they have already completed their own formal legacy planning, many with the blessing of their boards.

It’s ironic, then, that three out of five also said that the legacy of a CEO or founder often overshadows the skill set and experience a successor brings. Two-thirds of tech execs believed that the longer a leader has been in office, the more it complicates a transition.

Tech leaders can do this right and have done so. Asked which five big-name CEO transitions was most successful, respondents’ No. 1 was Apple’s handoff from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook (38%), followed by Microsoft’s page-turn from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella (28%). The others, at General Electric, General Motors and Goldman Sachs, each netted no more than 13% of votes.

Apple’s apparent predominance in this survey might contradict the advice to play down the aggrandizement of an exiting CEO and highlight the compilation and transfer of an organization’s history to the next chief executive. Jobs, after all, painstakingly managed his legacy until the end. But even as he continued to take center-stage, he also made sure to pass along Apple’s institutional knowledge and ethos to Cook over the 13 years they shared space on Apple’s executive floor.

Sooner or later, everyone in the C-suite today — including startup founders — will depart. For the sake of everyone they’ll leave behind, they should begin prepping for that day now.

Why I make everyone in my company be the CEO for a day

Extra Crunch roundup: Livestream e-commerce, growth marketing interviews, CEO for a day

This year, livestream viewers in China are projected to spend more than $60 billion on digital shopping experiences that let them interact with influencers in real time.

Promoting everything from cosmetics to food, social media stars use Taobao, TikTok and other platforms to livestream products and take questions from the audience.

On Taobao’s Singles Day in 2020, livestreams racked up $6 billion in sales, twice as much revenue as the year prior.

Sensing a trend, Western startups are getting in on the action, with companies like Whatnot and PopShop.Live raising rounds to build out their infrastructure. Looking forward, Alanna Gregory, senior global director at Afterpay, says she foresees four major trends:

• Networks
• SaaS streaming tools
• Host discovery and outreach tools
• Host marketplaces and agencies

“For brands, SaaS streaming tools will be the most impactful way to take advantage of livestream commerce trends,” Gregory writes in an Extra Crunch guest post. “All of this will be incredibly transformative.”

---

To help entrepreneurs take on the most fundamental challenge facing early-stage startups, our team is speaking to growth marketers to learn more about the advice they’re offering clients these days.

This week, Miranda Halpern and Anna Heim interviewed experts on growth marketing:

• The MKT1 interview: Growth marketing in 2021, hiring versus outsourcing and more
• Unmuted founder Max van den Ingh on success beyond the metrics
• Draft.dev CEO Karl Hughes on the importance of using experts in developer marketing

Growth is an existential issue, so these stories are free to read and share. If you’ve worked with an individual or an agency who helped your startup find and keep new users, please let us know.

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week; have a great weekend.

Walter Thompson

Senior Editor, TechCrunch

@yourprotagonist

Livestream e-commerce: Why companies and brands need to tune in

Why Latin American venture capital is breaking records this year

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim’s global exploration of Q2 venture capital data wrapped up this week with an in-depth look at Latin America.

One investor told them that today’s LatAm startup market “is a story about talent, not about capital.”

“The union of talent and money is what startup markets need to thrive,” they write. “But there are other reasons why Latin American startups are so frequently in the news today, including structural factors, such as strong digital penetration and quick e-commerce growth.”

Why Latin American venture capital is breaking records this year

Dear Sophie: Should we sponsor international hires for H-1B transfers and green cards?

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Dear Sophie,

My startup is desperately recruiting, and we see a lot of engineering candidates on H-1Bs.

They’re looking for H-1B transfers and green cards. What should we do?

— Baffled in the Bay Area

Dear Sophie: Should we sponsor international hires for H-1B transfers and green cards? 

Why I make everyone in my company be the CEO for a day

Image Credits: Blake Little (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

In the reality TV series “Undercover Boss,” high-powered executives disguise themselves so they can work alongside everyday employees, ostensibly to learn from them.

Flipping that script, software company Vincit USA has a “CEO of the Day” program where staffers move into a metaphorical corner office for 24 hours and receive a very real unlimited budget. There’s just one requirement.

“The CEO must make one lasting decision that will help improve the working experience of Vincit employees,” said Ville Houttu, Vincit’s founder and CEO.

Since instituting the program, Vincit USA has received multiple awards for its workplace culture and sees reduced staff turnover.

“Though it may seem crazy, the initiative has paid off tenfold,” said Houttu.

Why I make everyone in my company be the CEO for a day

What I’ve learned after 5 years of buying common stock in startups

Image Credits: Tim Robberts (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Instead of giving founders standard term sheets, Boston-based seed-stage venture capital firm Pillar VC offers to buy common stock.

“There are many terms and conditions in a preferred term sheet that can misalign investors and founders,” says founding partner Jamie Goldstein.

“As with any experiment, we have learned a few things that have surprised us and faced challenges we’ve had to overcome.”

What I’ve learned after 5 years of buying common stock in startups

China’s regulatory crackdown is good news for startups aligned with CCP goals

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Alex Wilhelm takes stock of the wall of news out of China over the past week to see if there’s a silver lining for startups in the country as the Chinese Communist Party cracks down on everything from edtech companies to streaming platforms.

His take?

“The result may be concentrated effort and capital in sectors that Beijing favors and reduced capital and focus from entrepreneurs in sectors that have been deemed fit for strict control,” he writes. “Simply: Central planning is going to tilt business more toward centrally planned goals.”

China’s regulatory crackdown is good news for startups aligned with CCP goals

Duolingo’s IPO pricing is great news for edtech startups

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

The Pittsburgh-based language-learning unicorn initially aimed for an $85 to $95 per share IPO price range, then bumped that up to $95 to $100 before it began to trade. It ultimately entered the public markets at $102 per share.

Alex Wilhelm notes that based on Duolingo’s expected Q2 revenues, the company has a run-rate multiple of nearly 16x. Compare that to the median multiple for public SaaS companies of 14x.

“Duolingo, a consumer edtech company, is now more valuable per revenue dollar than the median public enterprise SaaS business,” Alex writes.

Duolingo’s IPO pricing is great news for edtech startups

Financial firms should leverage machine learning to make anomaly detection easier

Image Credits: GOCMEN (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

“Anomaly detection is one of the more difficult and underserved operational areas in the asset-servicing sector of financial institutions,” EZOPS CEO Bikram Singh writes in a guest column.

But it’s critical to detect these anomalies amid a sea of data. That’s where unsupervised learning can offer a solution.

​​”With all eyes on data, it’s crucial that financial institutions find solutions to detect anomalies upfront, thereby preventing bad data from infecting downstream processes,” Singh writes.

“Machine learning can be applied to detect the data anomalies as well as identify the reasons for them, effectively reducing the time spent researching and rectifying executions.”

Financial firms should leverage machine learning to make anomaly detection easier

African startups join global funding boom as fintech shines

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim continued their global tour of Q2 2021 venture capital data, this week focusing on Africa.

“Early data indicates that Africa is set to trounce historical records in terms of venture capital raised in the year and that the first half of 2021 saw roughly twice the funds raised by African startups as was recorded in the first half of 2020,” they write.

“Startups across Africa have never had more access to capital than they do right now.”

African startups join global funding boom as fintech shines

True ‘shift left and extend right’ security requires empowered developers

Image Credits: kuritafsheen (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The intention of DevSecOps is to wedge security and compliance into DevOps. But that’s easier said than done, says Apiiro founder and CEO Idan Plotnik.

“Shifting left and extending right doesn’t mean that a scanning tool or security architect should detect a security risk earlier in the process — it means that a developer should have all the context to prevent the vulnerability before it even happens,” he writes.

True ‘shift left and extend right’ security requires empowered developers

4 key areas SaaS startups must address to scale infrastructure for the enterprise

Image Credits: Stewart Sutton (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Asana’s head of engineering, Prashant Pandey, rounds up four tips for SaaS startups looking to build up their infrastructure to meet customers’ growing needs.

“Startups and SMBs are usually the first to adopt many SaaS products. But as these customers grow in size and complexity — and as you rope in larger organizations — scaling your infrastructure for the enterprise becomes critical for success,” he writes.

He offers four areas to focus on:

• Address your customers’ security and reliability needs
• Give IT admins control over product usage
• Build data isolation into your architecture
• Support customers by interconnecting their data across applications

4 key areas SaaS startups must address to scale infrastructure for the enterprise

Google's plan to make advertising less invasive hits another roadblock

Replacing third-party cookies in Chrome to prevent users from being tracked online is proving more difficult than initially thought for Google as the company continues work on its Privacy Sandbox.

As reported by The Register, the search giant's Privacy Sandbox is a set of technologies designed to deliver personalized ads while making it much more difficult to track users online. 

All of the web technology proposals included in Google's Privacy Sandbox have bird-themed names and although we've heard a lot about FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) senior software engineer at Microsoft, John Mooring recently created a conceptual attack that could be used to target FLEDGE which stands for First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment.

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While FLoC tracks users across the web by putting them into groups as opposed to doing so individually, FLEDGE is a remarketing proposal that will be used to reach users on other sites after they've previously visited a company's website.

FLEDGE

In a recently opened issue in the GitHub repository for Turtledove which is now known as FLEDGE, Mooring described a conceptual attack that would allow an attacker to create code on webpages to use Google's technology proposal to track users across different sites.

This is particularly concerning as Google has designed FLEDGE to enable remarketing without tracking site visitors using personal identifiers. Google Mathematician Michael Kleber responded to Mooring's issue by acknowledging that his sample code could be abused to create an identifier in situations where there's no ad competition, saying: 

"This is indeed the natural fingerprinting concern associated with the one-bit leak, which FLEDGE will need to protect against in some way. We certainly need some approach to this problem before the removal of third-party cookies in Chrome." 

Before Google goes through with its plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in 2023, this one-bit leak issue will certainly need to be fixed to ensure the success of its Privacy Sandbox initiative.

• We've also highlighted the best online marketing services

Via The Register

Yat thinks emoji ‘identities’ can be a thing, and it has $20M in sales to back it up

I learned about Yat in April, when a friend sent our group chat a link to a story about how the key emoji sold as an “internet identity” for $425,000. “I hate the universe,” she texted.

Sure, the universe would be better if people with a spare $425,000 spent it on mutual aid or something, but minutes later, we were trying to figure out what this whole Yat thing was all about. And few more minutes later, I spent $5 (in USD, not crypto) to buy , an emoji string that I think tells a moving story about my caffeine dependency and sensitive stomach. I didn’t think I would be writing about this when I made that choice.

Kesha’s Yat URL on Twitter

On the surface, Yat is a platform that lets you buy a URL with emojis in it — even Kesha (y.at/), Lil Wayne (y.at/), and Disclosure (y.at/) are using them in their Twitter bios. Like any URL on the internet, Yats can redirect to another website, or they can function like a more eye-catching Linktree. While users could purchase their own domain name that supports emojis and use it instead of a Yat, many people don’t have the technical expertise or time to do so. Instead, they can make one-time purchase from Yat, which owns the Y.at domain, and the company will provide your with your own y.at link for you.

This convenience, however, comes at a premium. Yat uses an algorithm to determine your Yat’s “rhythm score,” its metric for determining how to price your emoji combo based on its rarity. Yats with one or two emojis are so expensive that you have to contact the company directly to buy them, but you can easily find a four- or five-emoji identity that’ll only put you out $4.

Beyond that, CEO Naveen Jain — a Y Combinator alumnus, founder of digital marketing company Sparkart, and angel investor — thinks that Yat is ultimately an internet privacy product. Jain wants people to be able to use their Yats in any way they’re able to use an online identity now, whether that’s to make payments, send messages, host a website, or login to a platform.

“Objectively, it’s a strange norm. You go on the internet, you register accounts with ad-supported platforms, and your username isn’t universal. You have many accounts, many usernames,” Jain said. “And you don’t control them. If an account wants to shut you down, they shut you down. How many stories are there of people trying to email some social network, and they don’t respond because they don’t have to?”

Image Credits: Yat (opens in a new window)

Yat doesn’t plan to fuel itself with ad money, since users pay for the product when they purchase their Yat, whether they get it for $4 or $400,000.

In the long run, Yat’s CEO says the company plans to use blockchain technology as a way to become self-sovereign. Yats would become assets issued on decentralized, distributed databases. Today, there are several projects working to create a decentralized alternative to the current domain name system (DNS), which is managed by internet regulatory authority ICANN.  DNS is how you find things on the internet, but uses a centralized, hierarchical system. A blockchain domain name system would have no central authority, and some believe this could be the foundation of a next-gen web, or “Web 3.0.”

Today, words like “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” don’t appear on the Yat website. Jain doesn’t think that’s compelling to average consumers — he believes in progressive decentralization, which explains why Yats are currently purchased with dollars, not ethereum.

“Something we think is really funny about the cryptocurrency world is that anyone who’s a part of it spends a lot of time talking about databases,” Jain said. “People don’t care about databases. When’s the last time you went to a website and it said ‘powered by MySQL’?”

Y.at, however, was registered at a traditional internet registrar, not on the blockchain.

“This is laying the foundation — there are certain elements of the vision that are certainly more of a social contract than actual implementation at this point in time,” says Jain. “But this is the vision that we’ve set forth, and we’re working continuously towards that goal.”

Still, until Yat becomes more decentralized, it can’t yet give users the complete control it aspires to. At present, the Terms & Conditions give Yat the authority to terminate or suspend users at its discretion, but the company claims it hasn’t yet booted anyone from the system.

“As Yat becomes more decentralized, our terms and conditions won’t be important,” Jain said. “This is the nature of pursuing a progressive decentralization strategy.”

In its “generation zero” phase (an open beta), Yat claims to have sold almost $20 million worth of emoji identities. Now, as the waitlist to get a Yat ends, Yat is posting some rare emoji identities on OpenSea, the NFT marketplace that recently reached a valuation of $1.5 billion.

A still image of a Yat visualizer creation

“For the first time ever, we’re going to be auctioning some Yats on OpenSea, and we’re going to be launching minting of Yats on Ethereum,” Jain said. Before minting Yats as NFTs, users can create a digital art landscape for their Yats through a Visualizer. These features, as well as new emojis in the Yat emoji set, will launch this evening at a virtual event called Yat Horizon.

“Yat Creators will now have more rights,” Jain said about the new ability to mint Yats as NFTs. “We are going to continue to pursue progressive decentralization until we achieve our ultimate goal: making Yat the best self-directed, self-sovereign identity system for all.”

Consumers have a demonstrated interest in retaining greater privacy on the internet — data shows that in iOS 14.5, 96% of users opted out of ad tracking. But the decentralization movement hasn’t yet been able to market its privacy advantages to the mainstream. Yat helps solve this problem because even if you don’t understand what blockchain means, you understand that having a personal string of emojis is pretty fun. But, before you spend $425,000 on a single-emoji username, keep in mind that Yat’s vision will only completely materialize with the advent of Web 3.0, and we don’t yet know when or if that will happen.

Building customer-first relationships in a privacy-first world is critical

PS5 restock date: Best Buy PS5 stock remains elusive after big Target drop

Trust and credibility

(Image credit: Matt Swider / Instagram)

PS5 restock tracker Matt Swider has helped 61,100 people in the US buy a next-gen console in 2021 with his tireless 24/7 tracking, in-stock Twitter alerts and exclusive restock reporting.

The Best Buy PS5 restock date will be sent to you by our 24/7 PS5 restock tracker Matt Swider – if you follow Matt's Twitter account and turn on notifications – but it might not be today, July 30. Matt is closely monitoring a dozen stores in the US, including Best Buy, and he tweeted about the big Target PS5 restock this morning, when the Sony console was in stock for just 13 minutes nationwide. When will Best Buy PS5 restock? Well, the electronics store had both the $499 PS5 Disc and $399 PS5 Digital for sale Friday of last week, and the restock time was 11:38am EDT for both PS5 consoles. We're now well past that time and the latest time it's ever done a restock is 6:05pm EDT, with 3:30pm EDT being its most popular choice. That's why we have to do 24/7 tracking at all of the stores in the US, even if Best Buy stocks PlayStation 5 early next week. 

► When? Where? Follow our PS5 restock Twitter tracker Matt Swider and turn on notifications for Best Buy PS5 restock alerts. It's the fastest way to get restock updates.

► Warning: don't buy from other Twitter users. They're all scams. Only buy from the US stores Matt alerts you about. No one will sell a PS5 for just $550.

► Why trust TechRadar? We don't point you to a bunch of US retailer links, which are always dead ends. Others do that – not us. Matt Swider will send you a push notification when there's actual PS5 stock through his 24/7 tracking efforts.

Directions: Click on this image of an example of a Best Buy PS5 restock alert from Matt Swider and turn on notifications (that little bell icon) for instant alerts.

(Image credit: Matt Swider / Twitter)

Best Buy PS5 restock date and time

• Next Best Buy PS5 restock date: Restocks every nine days (recently) on average
• Last Best Buy PS5 restock date: July 23, 2021 at 11:38am EDT  
• How to buy PS5 from Target: Follow our PS5 restock tracker account

The Best Buy PS5 restock isn't guaranteed to be today, though some people are very adamant about the restock date simply because the US retailer had the PS5 Disc and PS5 Digital in stock on Friday of last week.

However, looking at the history of Best Buy restock dates, there's recently been a nine-day gap in between, so we could see PS5 in stock online next week. Yes, nine days would fall on a Sunday, but we rarely see a PS5 restock on weekends. 

While the Best Buy restock date is easier to predict, the actual time that add-to-cart button goes live is much, much harder to figure out. Best Buy had opened up PS5 sales anywhere from 9:05am to 6:05pm, so during daylight hours, we have to be ready with a Best Buy restock Twitter alert. 

(Image credit: Matt Swider / Twitter)

Best Buy PS5 drop: it's the hardest to buy online

Truth be told, while over one hundred Matt Swider followers are usually able to buy the PS5 from Best Buy, it's not the easiest retailer to check out with in the US. Thousands are left frustrated by the Best Buy website and app.

While everyday customers have to wait through a mini virtual queue with Best Buy asking for you to hang on the page for 'one more step' (which it doesn't explain just means waiting until the greyed-out add-to-cart button loads back up in yellow), bots are able to open up multiple windows and determine which page will load that button up the quickest. We've seen hundreds of PS5 consoles secured by bots, leaving customers without a PlayStation 5 to claim within 250 miles of their location.

Best Buy does require people to pick up the PS5 in person at their local store – the actual video game system is held at a warehouse when orders are placed and then shipped to individual stores. It takes 3-5 days for the console to arrive at your local Best Buy. It goes without saying, the actual restock purchase remains online and you should travel to your Best Buy to try to buy the PS5. It hasn't been for sale in stores at Best Buy for all of 2021.

Best Buy PS5 tracker alerts – get it faster

The Best buy bot situation is why getting our PS5 Twitter tracker alerts have become an essential tool in securing the Sony console. While Sony sold 10 million PS5 consoles wordwide, millions more in the US alone are still looking to buy it.

There's an entire add-to-cart process when it comes to checking out: tap the yellow button, wait whole it's grayed out and turn yellow again, tap it again to truly add it to your cart and try to check out. Often this is where people get stuck, and it requires waiting until the Best Buy PS5 restock second wave happens – when it does, try to complete the purchase or chose a different store to pick it up from.

Because of these 'waves' where Best Buy constantly makes consoles available to purchase, often for over 30 minutes, persistence remains key. Speed on clicking on our restock Twitter alerts is also important, but only so far as to get more chances to add it to your cart and complete the convoluted checkout process.

(Image credit: Twitter / Matt Swider)

Best Buy PS5 restock history: when has it been in stock?

Best Buy is all over the place with its PS5 restock history, according to an alaysis of the Twitter alerts by Matt Swider. His 24/7 tracking of US stores like Best Buy offers insight into when the Sony console could be available next.

• Today is July 30, 2021 (Friday)
• 7 day gap since the last Target PS5 restock (no guarantee it's today)
• July 23, 2021 at 11:37am EDT (Friday)
• 9 day gap
• July 14, 2021 at 2:47pm EDT (Wednesday)
• 20 day gap
• June 24, 2021 at 5:05pm EDT (Tuesday)
• 21 day gap
• June 3, 2021 at 9:37am EDT (Thursday)
• 10 day gap
• May 24, 2021 at 11:49am EDT (Monday)
• 11 day gap
• May 13, 2021 at 3:40pm EDT (Thursday)
• 7 day gap
• May 6, 2021 at 3:49pm EDT (Thursday)
• 48 day gap
• March 19, 2021 at 12:12pm EDT (Friday)
• 7 day gap
• March 12, 2021 at 3:30pm EDT (Friday)
• 7 day gap
• March 5, 2021 at 3:30pm EDT (Friday)
• 7 day gap
• February 26, 2021 at 11:40pm EDT (Friday)
• 7 day gap
• February 19, 2021 at 11:28am EDT (Friday)
• 29 day gap
• January 21, 2021 at 12:40pm EDT (Thursday)
• 14 day gap
• January 7, 2021 at 4pm EDT (Thursday)

• How to buy PS5 today: Follow our PS5 restock Twitter account