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Decrypted: Tesla’s ransomware near miss, Palantir’s S-1 risk factors

Published August 31, 2020

Another busy week in cybersecurity.

In case you missed it: A widely used messaging app used by over a million protesters has several major security flaws; a little-known loophole has let the DMV sell driver’s licenses and Social Security records to private investigators; and the U.S. government is suing to reclaim over $2.5 million in cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers from two major exchanges.

But this week we are focusing on how a Tesla employee foiled a ransomware attack, and, ahead of Palantir’s debut on the stock market, how much of a risk factor is the company’s public image?

THE BIG PICTURE

Russian charged with attempted Tesla ransomware attack

$1 million. That’s how much a Tesla employee would have netted if they accepted a bribe from a Russian operative to install malware on Tesla’s Gigafactory network in Nevada. Instead, the employee told the FBI and the Russian was arrested.

The Justice Department charged the 27-year-old Russian, Egor Igorevich, weeks later as he tried to flee the United States. According to the indictment, his plan was to ask the employee to deliberately deploy ransomware on the Gigafactory’s network, grinding the network to a halt for a ransom of several million dollars. The would-be insider threat is likely the first of its kind, one ransomware expert told Wired, as financially driven hackers continue to up their game.

Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted earlier this week confirming that Tesla was the target of the failed attack.

The attack, if carried out, could have been devastating. The indictment said that the malware was designed to extract data from the network before locking its files. This data-stealing ransomware is an increasing trend. These hacker groups not only encrypt a victim’s files but also exfiltrate the data to their servers. The hackers typically threaten to publish the victim’s files if the ransom isn’t paid.

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Dorian raises $3.25M for its no-code, interactive storytelling platform

Published August 31, 2020

With Dorian, co-founder and CEO Julia Palatovska said she’s hoping to empower fiction writers and other storytellers to create their own games.

The startup is announcing that it has raised $3.25 million in seed funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from VGames, Konvoy Ventures, London Venture Partners, Michael Chow (co-creator of the Twitch series “Artificial”), Andover Ventures and talent management company Night Media.

In addition, John Howell, the former vice president of partnerships at Twitch, has joined the board as an independent director.

Palatskova previously worked in gaming as the head of business development at G5 Entertainment, and she said she’d also become entranced by narrative games and interactive fiction. And while there are existing interactive fiction platforms, she saw “an opportunity that I felt was missing,” particularly in the fact that those platforms are “entirely single player, with no opportunity to play and collaborate with other people.”

So she gave me a quick tour of the Dorian platform, showing me how, without coding, a writer can essentially design characters and backgrounds by choosing from a variety of visual assets (and they’ll eventually be able to upload assets of their own), while using a flowchart-style interface to allow the writer to connect different scenes in the story and create player choices. And as Palatskova noted, you can also collaborate on a story in real-time with other writers.

“In terms of writer productivity, I would say there is almost no difference between creating interactive fiction on our engine and just writing fiction,” she said.

Dorian Gunmen Scene

Image Credits: Dorian

From what I could see, the resulting games look similar to what you’d find on platforms like Pocket Gems’ Episode, where there aren’t a lot of technical bells and whistles, so the story, dialogue and character choices move to the forefront.

When I brought up the open-source game creation software Twine, Palatskova said Twine is “just a tool.”

“We want to be more like Roblox, both the tools and the distribution,” she said.

In other words, writers use Dorian to create interactive stories, but they also publish those stories using the Dorian app. (The writer still owns the resulting intellectual property.) Palatskova noted that Dorian also provides detailed analytics on how readers are responding, which is helpful not just for creating stories, but also for monetizing via premium story choices.

In fact, Dorian says that in early tests involving around 50,000 players, writers were able to improve monetization by 70% after only one or two iterations. And Palatskova noted that with Dorian’s games — unlike an interactive film such as “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” —”It’s fast and easy to test multiple branches.”

Dorian is currently invite-only, but the plan is to launch more broadly later this year. Palatskova is recruiting writers with and without gaming experience, but she also expects plenty of successful contributions to come from complete novices. She wants Dorian to be “a completely open platform, like Roblox or Twitch for writers.”

“Dorian’s success in creating an interactive platform that values storytelling while prioritizing monetization for its writers is a game-changer,” said March Capital’s Gregory Milken in a statement. “Julia and her team are creating a community that is primed to capture the attention of today’s influential but underrepresented audiences of diverse content creators.”

Update: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Dorian had raised $3.15 million.

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The week’s biggest IPO news had nothing to do with Monday’s S-1 deluge

Published August 31, 2020

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. (You can sign up for the newsletter here!)

Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.

The week’s biggest IPO news had nothing to do with Monday’s S-1 deluge

During Monday’s IPO wave I was surprised to see Asana join the mix. 

After news had broken in June that the company had raised hundreds of millions in convertible debt, I hadn’t guessed that the productivity unicorn wouldn’t give us an S-1 in the very next quarter. I was contentedly wrong. But the reason why Asana’s IPO is notable isn’t really much to do with the company itself, though do take the time to dig into its results and history. 

What matters about Asana’s debut is that it appears set to test out a model that, until very recently, could have become the new, preferred way of going public amongst tech companies. 

Here’s what I mean: Instead of filing to go public, and raising money in a traditional IPO, or simply listing directly, Asana executed two, large, convertible debt offerings pre-debut, thus allowing it to direct list with lots of cash without having raised endless equity capital while private.

The method looked like a super-cool way to get around the IPO pricing issue that we’ve seen, and also provide a ramp to direct listing for companies that didn’t get showered with billions while private. (That Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’s trust led the debt deal is simply icing on this particular Pop-Tart).

This brief column was going to be all about how we may see unicorns follow the Asana route in time, provided that its debt-powered direct listing goes well. But then the NYSE got permission from the SEC to allow companies to raise capital when they direct-list.

In short, some companies that direct-list in the future will be able to sell a bloc of shares at a market-set value that would have previously set their “open” price. So instead of flogging the stock and setting a price and selling shares to rich folks and then finding out what public investors would really pay, all that IPO faff is gone and bold companies can simply offer shares at whatever price the market will bear. 

All that is great and cool, but as companies will be able to direct-list and raise capital, the NYSE’s nice news means that Asana is blazing a neat trail, but perhaps not one that will be as popular as we had expected.

The NASDAQ is working to get in on the action. As Danny said yesterday on the show, this new NYSE method is going to crush traditional IPOs, provided that we’re understanding it during this, its nascent period.

Market Notes

Look, this week was bananas, and my brain is scrambled toast. You, like myself, are probably a bit confused about how it is only finally Saturday and not the middle of next week. But worry not, I have a quick roundup of the big stuff from our world. And, notes from calls with the COO of Okta and the CEO of Splunk, from after their respective earnings report: 

Over to our chats, starting with Okta COO and co-founder Frederic Kerrest:

  • Okta had a good quarter. But instead of noodling on just the numbers, we wanted to chat with its team about the accelerating digital transformation and what they are seeing in the market. 
  • On the SMB side, Kerrest reported little to no change. This is a bit more bullish than we anticipated, given that it seemed likely that SMB customers would have taken the largest hit from COVID.
  • Kerrest also told us some interesting stuff about how the wave of COVID-related spend has changed: “We actually have seen the COVID ‘go home and remote work very quickly’ [thing], we’ve actually seen that rush subside a little bit, because you know now we’re five months into [the pandemic], so they had to figure it out.”
  • This is a fascinating comment for the startup world. 
  • Okta is big and public and is going to grow fine for a while. Whatever. For smaller companies aka startups that were seeing COVID-related tailwinds, I wonder how common seeing “that rush subside a little bit” is. If it is very common, many startups that had taken off like a rocket could be seeing their growth come back to Earth.
  • And if they raised a bunch of money off the back of that growth at a killer valuation, they may have just ordered shoes that they’ll struggle to grow into.

And then there was new McLaren F-1 sponsor Splunk, data folks who are in the midst of a transition to SaaS that is seeing the firm double-down on building ARR and letting go of legacy incomes:

  • I spoke with CEO Doug Merritt, kicking off with a question about his use of the word “tectonic” regarding the shift to data-driven decisions from Splunk’s earnings report. (“As organizations continue to adapt to tectonic societal shifts brought on by COVID-19, one thing is constant: the power of data to radically transform business.”)
  • I wanted to know how far down the American corporate stack that idea went; are mid-size businesses getting more data-savvy? What about SMBs? Merritt was pretty bullish: “We’re getting to tectonic,” he said during our call, adding that before “it really was the Facebooks, the Googles, the Apples, the DoorDashes, [and] the LinkedIns that were using [Splunk].” But now, he said, even small restaurant chains are using data to better track their performance. 
  • Relating this back to the startup world, I’ve been curious if lots of stuff that you and I think is cool, like low-code business app development, will actually find as wide a footing in the market as some expect. Why? Because most small and medium-sized businesses are not tech companies at all. But if Merritt is right, then the CEO of Appian might be right as well about how many business apps the average company is going to have in a few years’ time.

And finally for Market Notes, my work BFF and IRL friend Ron Miller wrote about Box’s earnings this week, and how the changing world is bolstering the company. It’s worth a read. (Most public software companies are doing well, mind.)

Various and Sundry

We’re already over length, so I’ll have to keep our bits-and-bobs section brief. Thus, only the brightest of baubles for you, my friend:

And with that, we are out of room. Hugs, fist bumps and good vibes, 

Alex

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10 Berlin-based VCs discuss how COVID-19 has changed the landscape

Published August 30, 2020

A breeding ground for European entrepreneurs, Berlin has a knack for producing a lot of new startups: the city attracts top international, diverse talent, and it is packed with investors, events and accelerators. Also important: it’s a more affordable place to live and work when compared to many other cities in the region.

Berlin ranked 10th place in the 2019 Global Ecosystem Report, trailing behind only two other European cities: London and Paris. It’s home to unicorns such as N26, Zalando, HelloFresh and pioneers of the scene such as SoundCloud.

Top VCs include Earlybird, Point Nine, Project A, Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures and accelerators such as Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator, hub:raum and The Family.

To get a sense of how the novel coronavirus has changed the landscape, we asked ten investors to give us an insight into their thinking during these pivotal times:

Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, La Famiglia

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Generally, we believe in a future in which we can leverage technology to free up humans from repetitive and tedious work and to empower them to shift their focus to what they consider more meaningful and impactful: that is creative and interpersonal activities. Thus, we are excited about founders working towards that future and finding answers across multiple industries, such as manufacturing or logistics, across all working-classes, and across different eras – before, during and after COVID.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
One of the recent additions of our new fund is Luminovo, a Munich-based company that develops a solution in the electronics industry to reduce the time and resources needed to go from an idea to a market-ready circuit board.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
So far, we have only scratched the surface of the kind of efficiency gains that can potentially be achieved – particularly in industries that were considered to be boring and sluggish in the past, such as insurance or logistics. Even small improvements driven by technology can have a massive direct impact on P&L.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
In general, we love to back visionary founders in the seed-stage that tap into giant industries with a high potential for digitization across Europe and the US.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
COVID has sprung a myriad of companies in the communication and collaboration space into existence. While we believe in a future in which products and processes will be inherently remote-first, we will see a consolidation of that space that only allows for an oligopolistic market structure similar to how there is only one Zoom and Google Meet in the video communication space today.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
We have always considered ourselves as one of the few funds in Germany with a significant investment footprint both in Europe and the US. COVID has emphasized that we are able to invest entirely remotely and hence we will continue and even increase our activities across multiple hubs, such as Munich, Paris, or London.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not long-term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Germany’s economy relies on wealthy traditional companies sitting on top of capital to be unlocked which new entrants can make use of. This has been true before 2020, and COVID will only demand more and accelerated innovation across these traditional industries ranging from automotive, manufacturing, to the chemical industry.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Berlin and other German cities have consistently proven to develop and grow new leaders across multiple categories such as banking (N26), mobility (Flixbus and Lilium), or data analytics (Celonis). This is certainly driven by a mix of talents coming out of world-class educational institutions, the relative low cost of living in tech hubs, and large local incumbents with massive capital to invest and spend.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
While COVID has accelerated remote-first products and processes, we still believe that people will flock back to startup hubs such as Berlin or Munich, especially given the relatively low cost of living compared to other tech hubs like San Francisco. Nevertheless, we will continue to see an increasing number of companies scattered across multiple time zones building products that are inherently remote first, regardless where the general work environment will shift into.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
We are lucky in that our investment focus has been on sector verticals such as Logistics, Supply chain, manufacturing or the future of work, which have all captured significant tailwind from Covid.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
While our investment strategy on a high level will not change, we are putting longer sales cycles into consideration as potential customers of our portfolio companies now are focusing on capital efficiency which also holds true for our founders. Thus, we advise them to focus on extending the runway both by increasing capital efficiency as well as taking on additional funding.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
As our economy is still in the midst of dealing with the effects of COVID, it is too early to tell, but we definitely see positive indications driven by efforts of portfolio companies that could adapt quickly and shipped features catered to the current needs. One example is Personio, which extended their HR offerings with features that solve the need of customers who shifted to short-time work.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
What gave me hope was the cohesion of the German economy that fought together for solutions and support during these difficult times. One positive example was the German Startup Association that helped achieve additional governmental financial aid for German SMEs.

Any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers?
Similar to how the past financial crisis allowed companies such as Stripe or Shopify to become ubiquitous parts of our daily life, these unprecedented times now will also give birth to new forms and shapes in which new ideas will grow into large businesses and we are excited to partner up with founders willing to take a bet on that future.

Jorge Fonturbel, Target Global

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Startups Weekly: With Asana, JFrog, Palantir, Snowflake, Sumo and Unity, we’re in peak season for tech IPOs

Published August 29, 2020

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here.

Pandemic numbers are looking better, it’s still a couple months before U.S. elections and a growing line of tech companies have already ventured out into public markets successfully this summer. Hard to imagine conditions beating the present any time soon, whether you’re traditionally banked, going with a direct listing or getting inside a SPAC vehicle.

We covered the frenzy this week with an eye toward what other startups can learn about the way these companies have arrived at this point. Here are the headlines for each, from Asana to Unity.

But first, consider this special episode of our Equity podcast from Wednesday, where the team reviews the news. And for a faster(ish) read, Extra Crunch subscribers should also check out Alex Wilhelm’s “super-long roundup” of the companies.

The IPOs:

As losses expand, Asana is confident it has the ticket for a successful public listing

Palantir and the great revenue mystery
The bullish case for Palantir’s direct listing (EC)
Leaked S-1 says Palantir would fight an order demanding its encryption keys
Palantir’s S-1 alludes to controversial work with ICE as a risk factor for its business

Unpacking the Sumo Logic S-1 filing (EC)

A quick peek at Snowflake’s IPO filing
Industry experts say it’s full speed ahead as Snowflake files S-1

Unity’s IPO numbers look pretty … unreal?
Sequoia strikes gold with Unity’s IPO filing

Regarding that last one, EC members should be sure to check out our popular deep dive from last year detailing how Unity came to be a leading gaming engine.

Finally, here’s one last EC headline to get you ready for what is sure to be another week of official S-1s, leaked filing information, rumors of imminent IPO dates, controversies over methods of going public, etc.:

SaaS stocks survive earnings, keeping the market warm for software startups, exits

Image Credits: Getty Images

You don’t know SPACs

Special purpose acquisition companies are an older model of financial vehicle used to take companies public that has become a hot trend in recent years as more tech startups try to figure out liquidity events. Here’s Connie Loizos, who put together a long list of questions and answers about SPACs, concluding that the trend is here for the long-term:

[One] investment banker says he’s seeing less interest from VCs in sponsoring SPACs and more interest from them in selling their portfolio companies to a SPAC. As he notes, “Most venture firms are typically a little earlier stage investors and are private market investors, but there’s an uptick of interest across the board, from PE firms, hedge funds, long-only mutual funds.”

That might change if [A* SPAC founder] Kevin Hartz has anything to do with it. “We’re actually out in the Valley, speaking with all the funds and just looking to educate the venture funds,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of requests in. We think we’re going to convert [famed VC] Bill Gurley  from being a direct listings champion to the SPAC champion very soon.”

In the meantime, asked if his SPAC has a specific target in mind already, Hartz says it does not. He also takes issue with the word “target.”

Says Hartz, “We prefer ‘partner company.’” A target, he adds, “sounds like we’re trying to assassinate somebody.”

Open treasure chest of gold on a deserted beach.

Image Credits: Dougal Waters / Getty Images

Inside the nearly 200 companies of Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 demo day

After YC’s first remote-only demo day this spring, the seed-stage venture firm switched from recorded pitches to live ones. The TechCrunch team was on hand to cover the 192 presentations over Monday and Tuesday this week. We’ve written up these two handy guides to help you find your newest competitors, employers or maybe investment:

The 98 companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 Demo Day 1
The 94 companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 Demo Day 2

The staff also picked out their dozen or so favorites from each day, for Extra Crunch subscribers:

Our 11 favorite companies from Y Combinator’s S20 Demo Day: Part 1
Our 12 favorite startups from Y Combinator’s S20 Demo Day: Part 2

(Check out this special demo day edition of Equity for a free audio rundown.)

One company wasn’t in the mix — a startup called Trove, that provides internal compensation SaaS tools, and has just raised a huge new round from Andreessen Horowitz. Natasha Mascarenhas has more.

What investors are saying about startup cities in 2020: Chicago edition

Cities around the world have developed strong tech scenes, but these startup hubs are at the center of potential disruption from pandemic problems plus the possibilities of remote work. We’re surveying investors around the world about what’s next for their home bases. This week, Matt Burns checks in with top Chicago investors about the tech future of the biggest Midwestern city. Here’s Constance Freedman of proptech-oriented fund Moderne Ventures, who is investing in the middle of all these changes:

World-class startups still need world-class feeders, so I don’t expect expansion to reach all that far, but perhaps density or proximity to work becomes less important for those who work there. This may give more cities a change to rise, including Chicago.

So what does this mean for Chicago startup ecosystem? I think Chicago is poised to come out well. The city is affordable to begin with … like 50% more affordable than the West or East Coast hubs. If I live in Chicago I can afford space, I can enjoy my city and I have good transportation if I want to bail out of the city and move to the suburbs. Chicago has a strong ecosystem of universities and capital that can sustain it and may become more appealing to those (tech people and investors) who moved out to go to the coasts in the first place and now realize they don’t need to be there. As people migrate to live where they really want to live, with the lifestyle they want to have, near family they want to be with, they begin to look for more local opportunities and that may bring some great talent back to Chicago and other markets outside of the coasts.

Chicago has long been known for banking, real estate, health care and insurance. I think these sectors and others are poised to do well. The largest opportunity for us (and any major city) is how to close the education gap, which leads to closing the income gap and from there — the sky is the limit!

Meanwhile, Mike Butcher is working on surveys across Europe, and would like to hear from you if you are an investor in Paris or Warsaw.

Around TechCrunch (Disrupt Time)

Conan is coming to Disrupt 2020

Meet the Disrupt 2020 ‘TC10’

Presenting TechCrunch Disrupt’s Asia sessions

Learn how to scale social impact startups at Disrupt with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Jessica O. Matthews

Benchmark’s Peter Fenton is joining us at Disrupt

Learn why embedded finance is the future of fintech at Disrupt

Laura Deming, Frederik Groce, Amish Jani, Jessica Verrilli and Vanessa Larco are coming to Disrupt

Carbon Health’s Eren Bali and Color’s Othman Laraki will join us at Disrupt 2020

Black founders can get tactical advice at Disrupt

Five real reasons to attend Disrupt 2020 online

Hear from experienced edtech investors on the market’s overnight boom at Disrupt 2020

Startup Alley exhibitors: Register for VC-led Fundraising & Hiring Best Practices webinar

Here’s how you can get a second shot at Startup Battlefield

Two weeks left on early-bird pricing for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020

Grab your student discount pass for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020

Register for our last pitch-off next week on September 2

Extra Crunch discount now available for military, nonprofits and government employees

Across the week

TechCrunch

The pandemic has probably killed VR arcades for good

Femtech poised for growth beyond fertility

Five proven ways to attract and hire more diverse talent

Will automation eliminate data science positions?

Eduardo Saverin on the ‘world of innovation past Silicon Valley’

The H-1B visa ban is creating nearshore business partnership opportunities

Meet the startups from Brinc’s first online Demo Day

Extra Crunch

What can growth marketers learn from lean product development?

Alexa von Tobel: Eliminating risk is the key to building a startup during an economic downturn

As DevOps takes off, site reliability engineers are flying high

How to establish a startup and draw up your first contract

COVID-19 is driving demand for low-code apps

Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite

Funding for mental health-focused startups rises in 2020

Box CEO Aaron Levie says thrifty founders have more control

#EquityPod

From Alex Wilhelm:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This is the fourth episode of the week, pushing our production calendar to the test. Happily, we’ve managed to hold it together amidst the news deluge that the last few days have brought. It was a good week for our scheduling change, with the main episode of the show coming to you on Thursday afternoon versus Friday morning.

Change is good.

But unchanging this time around was our hosting lineup, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself yammering with Chris Gates on the mix. Here’s what we got into:

  • The CEO of TikTok is out, bids are swirling and who will wind up owning a piece of all of TikTok’s global operations is not clear. Walmart is in the mix, apparently, which feels very 2020.
  • The New York Stock Exchange has gotten approval from the SEC for a new type of direct listing, one in which the company going public can sell a bloc of shares during the normal price discovery process. This means that all the banker-faff of setting a price and roadshowing to various investor groups could be going the way of the buffalo.
  • About time, maybe? That was our take after reading this Bill Gurley note and the latest SEC news.
  • But while the direct listing world is getting more interesting, the SPAC world is taking flight. Desktop Metal is going public via a SPAC which is all sorts of fascinating. A younger, Boston-based unicorn going public in this manner is eye catching!
  • And then two funding rounds, the first from Finix, which can’t stop adding to its Series B. And Mural, which raised the largest Series B we can recall.

And with that, we’re all going to bed. We’re tired. No more news, thanks!

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

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Original Content podcast: Netflix’s ‘High Score’ is a selective tour through video game history

Published August 29, 2020

“High Score” is a new Netflix documentary series that looks back at the early years of the video game industry.

Across six episodes, key developers, artists, executives and even players discuss the initial arcade and home console boom, the emergence of Nintendo, the rise of adventure and role-playing games, the battle between Sega and Nintendo, the success and ensuing controversy over fighting games like Mortal Kombat and the development of 3D gameplay in Starfox and Doom.

We review “High Score” on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, which inevitably leads us to get a little wistful our own relationship with these classic games.

For older gamers, the series provides some pleasant jolts of nostalgia, and it’s also a useful primer for anyone who isn’t familiar with the industry’s history. It also taking time to highlight some lesser-known stories, and it’s full of fun touches, like retro animation illustrated moments that weren’t captured on film.

It’s worth remembering, though, that “High Score” focuses on just a few key figures and a few key games, which means that a number of important developments are ignored or only touched on briefly.

You can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:33 “High Score” review

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Apple terminates Epic Games’ App Store account

Published August 28, 2020

Epic Games has been removed from Apple’s App Store.

If you’ve already downloaded Fortnite to your Mac or iOS device, it should still work, but Epic’s termination means the Fortnite developer will no longer be able to submit new apps or updates.

MacStories Managing Editor John Voorhees noted the termination on Twitter, as well as the fact that the App Store is currently featuring Fortnite competitor PUBG.

Apple confirmed the move in a statement:

We are disappointed that we have had to terminate the Epic Games account on the App Store. We have worked with the team at Epic Games for many years on their launches and releases. The court recommended that Epic comply with the App Store guidelines while their case moves forward, guidelines they’ve followed for the past decade until they created this situation. Epic has refused. Instead they repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines of the App Store. This is not fair to all other developers on the App Store and is putting customers in the middle of their fight. We hope that we can work together again in the future, but unfortunately that is not possible today.

You missed your chance. Epic is off the App Store now.

Also, this fight has gotten very petty. Today’s featured app? PUBG https://t.co/evp2R6qRxC pic.twitter.com/2vyRj6Oy1U

— John Voorhees (@johnvoorhees) August 28, 2020

Apple also said that Epic has been creating support issues by directing frustrated users toward AppleCare.

This is the latest development in the Epic-Apple dispute, which began earlier this month when the developer introduced support for direct payments in Fortnite, attempting to circumvent the 30% cut that Apple takes on App Store payments. This prompted Apple to boot Fortnite from the App Store, with Epic immediately launching a lawsuit and a publicity campaign that accused Apple of abusing its market power.

Earlier this week, a federal district court judge ordered Apple not to block access to Epic’s Unreal Engine for developers, but she said that Fortnite could stay out of the App Store until it complied with the rules.

Today’s removal should not affect the Unreal Engine, which Epic manages through a separate account.

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TikTok’s rivals in India struggle to cash in on its ban

Published August 28, 2020

For years, India has served as the largest open battleground for Silicon Valley and Chinese firms searching for their next billion users.

With more than 400 million WhatsApp users, India is already the largest market for the Facebook-owned service. The social juggernaut’s big blue app also reaches more than 300 million users in the country.

Google is estimated to reach just as many users in India, with YouTube closely rivaling WhatsApp for the most popular smartphone app in the country.

Several major giants from China, like Alibaba and Tencent (which a decade ago shut doors for most foreign firms), also count India as their largest overseas market. At its peak, Alibaba’s UC Web gave Google’s Chrome a run for its money. And then there is TikTok, which also identified India as its biggest market outside of China.

Though the aggressive arrival of foreign firms in India helped accelerate the growth of the local ecosystem, their capital and expertise also created a level of competition that made it too challenging for most Indian firms to claim a slice of their home market.

New Delhi’s ban on 59 Chinese apps on June 30 on the basis of cybersecurity concerns has changed a lot of this.

Indian apps that rarely made an appearance in the top 20 have now flooded the charts. But are these skyrocketing download figures translating to sustaining users?

An industry executive leaked the download, monthly active users, weekly active users and daily active users figures from one of the top mobile insight firms. In this Extra Crunch report, we take a look at the changes New Delhi’s ban has enacted on the world’s second largest smartphone market.

TikTok copycats

Scores of startups in India, including news aggregator DailyHunt, on-demand video streamer MX Player and advertising giant InMobi Group, have launched their short-video format apps in recent months.

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Steno raises $3.5 million led by First Round to become an extension of law offices

Published August 28, 2020

The global legal services industry was worth $849 billion in 2017 and is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry by the end of next year. Little wonder that Steno, an LA-based startup, wants a piece.

Like most legal services outfits, what it offers are ways for law practices to run more smoothly, including in a world where fewer people are meeting in conference rooms and courthouses and operating instead from disparate locations.

Steno first launched with an offering that centers on court reporting. It lines up court reporters, as well as pays them, removing both potential headaches from lawyers’ to-do lists.

More recently, the startup has added offerings like a remote deposition videoconferencing platform that it insists is not only secure but can manage exhibit handling and other details in ways meant to meet specific legal needs.

It also, very notably, has a lending product that enables lawyers to take depositions without paying until a case is resolved, which can take a year or two. The idea is to free attorneys’ financial resources — including so they can take on other clients — until there’s a payout. Of course, the product is also a potentially lucrative one for Steno, as are most lending products.

We talked earlier this week with the company, which just closed on a $3.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital (it has now raised $5 million altogether).

Unsurprisingly, one of its founders is a lawyer named Dylan Ruga who works as a trial attorney at an LA-based law group and knows first-hand the biggest pain points for his peers.

More surprising is his co-founder, Gregory Hong, who previously co-founded the restaurant reservation platform Reserve, which was acquired by Resy, which was acquired by American Express. How did Hong make the leap from one industry to a seemingly very different one?

Hong says he might not have gravitated to the idea if not for Ruga, who was Resy’s trademark attorney and who happened to send Hong the pitch behind Steno to get Hong’s advice. He looked it over as a favor, then he asked to get involved. “I just thought, ‘This is a unique and interesting opportunity,’ and said, ‘Dylan, let me run this.’ ”

Today the 19-month-old startup has 20 full-time employees and another 10 part-time staffers. One major accelerant to the business has been the pandemic, suggests Hong. Turns out tech-enabled legal support services become even more attractive when lawyers and everyone else in the ecosystem is socially distancing.

Hong suggests that Steno’s idea to marry its services with financing is gaining adherents, too, including amid law groups like JML Law and Simon Law Group, both of which focus largely on personal injury cases.

Indeed, Steno charges — and provides financing — on a per-transaction basis right now, even while its revenue is “somewhat recurring,” in that its customers constantly have court cases.

Still, a subscription product is being considered, says Hong. So are other uses for its videoconferencing platform. In the meantime, says Hong, Steno’s tech is “built very well” for legal services, and that’s where it plans to remain focused.

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Xiaomi plans to bring under-screen cameras to its smartphones next year

Published August 28, 2020

The front-facing camera has been a pretty constant bugbear for phone makers for a number of years now. Xiaomi certainly isn’t the first to offer a clever technological solution to the problem — and it’s also certainly not the only company to show off under-screen camera tech — but next year, it’s committed to bringing that technology to market.

The manufacturer noted its plans today as part of its earnings report, stating that it will begin manufacturing handsets using the latest version of the technology it’s been working on for a number of years now. This actually represents the third generation of the tech. The first didn’t exist outside of the lab and the second was shown off to the public but never made it into production.

There are no doubt all sorts of practical reasons for that. Among them seems to be the issue of pixel density. For reasons that ought to be pretty obvious, there’s a big question of how to maintain a consistent pixel density in the area of the screen that sits on top of the front-facing camera. Xiaomi claims to have solved the problem, however.

“The self-developed pixel arrangement used in Xiaomi’s 3rd Generation Under-Display Camera Technology allows the screen to pass light through the gap area of ​​sub-pixels, allowing each single pixel to retain a complete RGB subpixel layout without sacrificing pixel density,” it writes in a blog post.

Xiaomi says it’s been able to effectively double the pixel density of competing technology, letting light through to the camera, without sacrificing the uniformity of the screen. It looks good in the side-by-side videos the company has released, but obviously it’s worth reserving judgement until mass production starts next year.

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