#sure ik a fair-ish amount

[schrodingers-hoarding-problem]

seeing such a bigger community of shawols than i thought there was on tumblr is making me want an older shawol mentor to teach me more

[non-bee-knees]

So

I just rewatched “The First”

And let me tell you;

I’ve seen a lot of this franchise in a relatively short amount of time

I got into it just before the summer holidays, June-ish, and since then I’ve seen most of the Specials and Movies (some are…very questionable😓), a few episodes a piece of Part 1 and 2, as well as all of Parts 4 and 5, some episodes twice or even three times (think the Jigen and Goemon eps from part 4, any ep that involved Albert in part 5 and the part 5 finale eps) and I’ve read and written my fair share of FanFics (even the supposed ‘OOC’ ones are still in character btw, yall are doing gods work with your writing) and I gotta say,

After all of that, coming back and watching this movie, as absolutely spectacular as it is, just feels out of place, for a reason I couldn’t figure.

Until I did.

So, with no other way to begin phrasing this will-be-essay of a post, here it is:-

They made Zenigata stupid.

Obviously, he’s not an idiot, that’s not fair to say, but we see through other movies, as well as parts 4 and 5 that he knows the Lupin and the gang inside out, from figuring out it was Jigen in that Chapel in his part 4 ep, to knowing Lupin would go after Fuji in part 5, he can figure out Lupins next move like nothing, calling card or not.

So for him in this movie to just not be up to that, he feels lacky almost, letting his guards try catch Lupin rather than do it himself (until that desert scene, where he’s tricked). Yeah he’s still smart, but it doesn’t feel like he has it all figured out yet. He feels like “The First Contact” kinda smart

Next, my Dear Goemon.

I’m impressed, really, because they took one of the most annoyingly standoffish and quiet characters, AND MADE HIM MORE SO!

But not quite. He’s not himself.

He’s been quiet before, and standoffish before, but this feels different. Before hand it felt he wasn’t talking/interacting with the others by choice, but here, it felt more like he wanted to say things, but wasn’t sure how. He was just awkward. And while I love that, it wasn’t him.

That scene where he didn’t want to give up his sword, he felt childish in complaining about it, where as in another other movie/series of the show he’d had thrown hands at the idea of it.

Even back in the original Red Jacket series and other Red movies, he isn’t like this, isn’t as unsure as this.

Next: Fujiko.

Right off the bat; I don’t like her. I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know, because as much as I hate the bitch, I fucking love her at the same time. It’s a very mixed vibe.

The summary about her is shorter, because she is one of the few characters who hasn’t changed much (in my opinion). She has gotten more empathetic over time, I think, but I don’t pay too much attention to her really.

What I did notice is that she was very sloppy. She got caught out of her scam with the suitcase very quick, and you can’t tell me that it’s because that guy was smart. No he wasn’t. She was also surprisingly co-operative with the gang, something she usually seems reluctant on, at least without some reward. And while she did complain, it was only once, and she wasn’t trying to get something out of it afterwards. She wasn’t as fleshed out in her whole “scamming” business yet.

Finally, Jigen.

(I’m not gonna do Lupin, as his character is very hard to place at the best of times, but hasn’t changed too much really)

Jigen right off the bat, is not the man we know and love today. He too feels like he’s more of a few episodes after “The First Contact” kinda development. Without a second glance he shuts down Lupins idea of the Bresson Diary, despite the fact we know they been through worse for less. He doesn’t really care. And even though he never says it, it feels like he could have called Lupin ‘Boss’ in this movie and gotten away with it.

He, at the point of this film, feels like he’s only in it for the money. Maybe he’s starting to grow attached to Lupin, which is why he goes after him, but still, they don’t have that bond yet.

Where am I going with this nonsense?!

This film starts by calling out that the first scene takes place in World War 2, probably near the end, so let’s say on a late end, it’s ‘44.

Then just after the open title, we see that it’s “more than a Decade later”, and we get to see Laetitia for the first time. I’m not saying she’s anymore that 18-ish, so let’s take the late end again and say she’s 20.

Given that ‘44 year before and the 20 year age gap, we can safely say, even at the latest, this movie takes place in the mid ‘60’s.

If we can guess about the Gangs ages, with what we know, we can say that Goemon is about a year or two older than Laetitia, say 22-ish. Fujiko isn’t far behind, nor Lupin, say 25-ish and 27-ish respectively, with Jigen pulling rear at around 30. (These are all just guesses)

All of that together puts this film at the very earliest, timeline wise, that we’ve seen the Gang together, even earlier than the OG Green series, which we can assume takes place in the 70’s, the years it was produced (Ik the manga was written earlier but the show would probably have taken elements from the year it was produced in)

Basically!

That explains why they’re all so odd. They haven’t gotten to know each other yet, they haven’t been in the job long enough to figure the kinks out!

Ik that Zeni obviously knows a few of Lupins tricks, indicating that he’s been after him at least for a hot minute, but this could be one of the first times that the Gang (Zeni included) are all working together!

And I kinda like it, looking from that perspective, that they don’t really know that they’re doing yet.

If they make another CGI film I hope they keep it in the older era, and that they keep this newer feel to their partnerships together.

ANYWAYS.

Im so hyped for Part 6, seeing Albert AND Yata in the trailer says to me that even though it’s a different Jacket, it is indeed a rough carry on of the last 2 seasons. CANT WAIT :))

(All of this is my person opinion and take on the film and the characters, please feel free to give your own take on the subject, I’d love to here y’all’s opinions too x)

THANK YOU IF YOU READ THIS FAR X

[mifhortunach]

can you talk me into listening to rqg? the first few episodes are... Difficult

i can certainly try to !! i’ll admit tho, that I’m not the most articulate person who listens so sorry if this doesn’t help all that much :/ (i asked camille magictaverns for a little help on this, so hopefully that’ll improve this answer, lmao)

the first,, While~ or a moderate bit of the prologue (thats what the 1st bunch of eps are, ik!! all of that is /Just/ the prologue, oof) is kinda slow, and the players are still finding their characters - like I’m p sure i only properly started /Really/ liking it around ep 17 but !! Its Worth It !! //I Promise// - like the first maybe 12-ish eps are very much getting into the stride of things and the players properly settling into form & character

so its entirely fine to skip forward to either the currently sorta ‘airing’ eps, where they recapped a lot bc they’ve gotten the lovely(!) helen on as a new player, or just to the #official chapter one of the thing (as it were) 

why i think you /Should/ listen to the prologue however is that its like. p much the only way you’ll have even the slightest idea what The Simulacrum even is?? they dip into it a lil in the recap eps, but not especially in detail & since its the proper Big Reason that theyre travelling about the world & hero-ing. & bc they set up some good joaks in there 

good good things about rqg: (under cut bc its a lil long)

- alex’s world building is Genuinely so Fckn Expansive & Incredible: they’ve been to 5? diff international cities & each of those has seemed layered and real; its got a cool combination of science & magic going on, and it only gets better as you learn more about it - the influence that magic has had on the world, and whats happened in its history that affects how things are happening in the game, but without any boring lore-dumping or it seeming overly contrived

- on a kinda similar note, smth which i really liked about it is how they’ve approached/created a world where Faith is still a thing tht Has to be had, even though gods are Undoubtably Real & give out powers like, All The Time; like theres some genuinely really truly Cool, Painterly, kinda beautiful interactions w gods and w magic (like,, theres a specific dream/vision/godchat that zolf has at one point that i still so so genuinely think about all the time)

- they keep brutor !! the best & poshest dog in the world

- the sound editing is Really /Smth/, I’ve never listened to a rpg podcast which puts nearly as much stock into the background sounds of the cities, sky & oceans they travel as much as this one does

- the crew are all funny, and nice and experienced with improv, as well as rpgs p much? the characters have a lot more going on which is revealed super super well as the series goes on like: whys bertie going around ‘hero-ing’ when he’s such a douche?? how’d hamid get kicked out of magic college?? whats up with sasha’s family?? why’s azu just the absolute best always?? whats up w grizzop’s hang-ups to do w mortality?? what kind of fiction does zolf like best??

- jellied eels

- theres a bertie side quest for a little bit? and thats got one of my fave characters: Eddie, who’s a fkn v sweet & v dumb paladin of apollo

- oscar wilde is there

- so is albert einstein

- ,, and issac newton, and amelia earhart

- i do genuinely think its real funny often, ik theres a lot of Info kinda given out early, but if gets better & funnier from there

- its hard not to care about the characters?? like, theres a fair amount of in-character player-player interactions, which is smth that *i* really like, and thats smth which is a little lacking in a lot of rpg podcasts i think - theres some eps which are entirely character driven w almost no rolling at all. each character has diff relationships & interactions w each of the rest of the cast, and the characters themselves seem to grow and develop as the series progresses  

- big ol’ dragons

!! so that’s what i can probs give as reasons to continue on w it (w/o having to do a full relisten on my part uh) - lmk if this helped at all !! & if you continue, or wanna know anything specific, or just talk about it either, or if i answered this entirely badly that too :0c 

[thelastspeecher]

🌙 Lute McGucket

🌙 - vampire

Decided to set this in the Stanley McGucket AU.  In most AUs, Lute visits his siblings in Gravity Falls unexpectedly and ends up with a firsthand experience of the weirdness there.  But in the Stanley McGucket AU, I think it happens more often than in others.

Send me an emoji and I’ll write you a ficlet!

               “Dish ish da lasht time Ivishit,” Lute said, frustrated.  

               “We warned ya ‘bout the bats,”Fiddleford said.  Lute scrunched up hisface.  “We told ya to bring protection if’nya were plannin’ on goin’ into that cave.”

               “Shtanford didn’t brink ‘tekshun.”

               “Yeah, well, Ford’s the dumbestgenius I know, so,” Stan said, idly bouncing the baby he was holding.  The baby grabbed at his hair.  “Ouch! Danny, chill.”  Danny giggled inresponse.  Lute smiled fondly.

               “She’sh sho cude,” Lute cooed.

               “Stuff like that is how I knowyou’re bluffin’,” Stan said.  “No amountof fangs and blood-suckin’ could keep Lute McGucket away from his nieces.”  Lute ran his tongue along the large fangsthat had grown overnight.  Stan raised aneyebrow.  “That’s…kinda weird, Gucket.”

               “Jusht feelin’ ‘em.”  

               “Okay, we should be able to cureyour vampirism before you return to Gumption,” Ford said, walking into theliving room.  After Lute’s bat bite fromthe day before had resulted in fangs and sallow skin, Ford had immediately doveinto researching ‘the vampire condition’. As such, the McGuckets and Stan had gathered at Ford and Fiddleford’shouse, so that Lute could be ‘properly studied’.  

               “Good,” Lute said.  Crying began to emit from the playpen Stanand Angie had set up.  Angie stoppedtaking Lute’s vitals for a moment to glance over at the playpen.  Their second child, Daisy, was standingupright, chubby fists clenched around the mesh playpen wall and face beet red.  Daisy’s wailing grew louder.

               “Daisy wants somethin’, Stan,”Angie said.  

               “Yeah, I figured that out, babe.  But I’m kinda busy holdin’ Danny right now.”

               “I’ll take care of her,” Lutesaid brightly.  

               “No,” Stan and Angie saidshortly.  Lute deflated.

               “Why?” Lute asked.

               “Ya still need to be, fer lackof a better word, examined,” Angie replied, abandoning her task and walkingover to her screaming daughter.  Shepicked Daisy up.  Her nose wrinkled.  “Yup, she needs somethin’ all right.”

               “Did you finish taking Lute’svitals?” Ford asked without looking up from his journal.

               “Nope.  I got a baby what needs a diaper changed,”Angie replied.  She left the room,grabbing the diaper bag on her way out.

               “Also, Lute, don’t take this thewrong way, but ya turned into a creature of the night,” Stan said.  Danny tugged on his face.  “I know ya love the girls to bits, but still,they’re prime prey for a vampire.”  

               “How could I nod dake dad da wrong way?” Lutedemanded.  “Shtan, I wouldn’t harm a hairon der headsh.”

               “I know,” Stan saidquietly.  Danny poked him in theeye.  “Ow.”

               “Shervesh ya right.”

               “Actually, that brings up a goodpoint,” Ford said.  “Have you gotten anyvampiric cravings yet?”

               “Ike fer human blood?  Uh, don’t dink sho.”

               “Are you sure?” Fordprompted.  “We need to plan ahead.  It will likely take a couple days to cureyou, and I doubt you can go for that long without satiating your appetite.  At least, unless you wish to turn into amindless monster.”

               “Whad are ya dalkin’ ‘bout?”Lute asked.

               “If a vampire don’t drink bloodfer a long enough time, they turn into a bein’ driven by their thirst ferblood,” Fiddleford explained.  “Allhigher mental functions are gone.  Theironly thoughts are to satisfy their hunger.”

               “…Okay, Shtan, now I shee whyyer nervoush,” Lute conceded.  He rubbedthe back of his neck.  “Gosh, dat’sh nota happy dought, turnin’ into shome shavage beasht.”

               “And that’s precisely why weneed to plan,” Ford said firmly.  “Do youhave any hunger?  Any at all?”

               “Umm…”

               “We need to determine the amountof time you can go between feedings,” Ford said.  He poised a pen above a fresh page in hisjournal.  “What time did you last eatfood?”

               “Uh, shix?” Lute said with ashrug.  “Dat’sh when dinner wash.”

               “Excellent.  And since your fangs grew, have you had anycravings for human blood?  Or flesh?”

               “Flesh?” Stan asked.  “Sixer, we ain’t dealin’ with zombies.”

               “Yes, but the werewolves ofGravity Falls drastically differ from the werewolves of lore.  It’s just wise to prepare for the chance thatGravity Falls’ vampires are the same way.”

               “No, no hunger fer blood or fesh,”Lute said.

               “Any murderous urges?” Fordasked, scribbling it down.  Lute eyedhim.

               “No more ‘n ushual.”  Ford looked up, startled.

               “Oh.  You- you were referring to me.”

               “Shtanford, I ain’t fond of bein’poked ‘n prodded like a horshe ad da coundy fair,” Lute said.  “You’ve been on thin ishe wid me before.  Dish ain’t helpin’ yer cashe.”

               “A horse is an interestingcomparison,” Ford mused.  “Normally,people say ‘prize dog’ or something along those lines.”

               “‘Normally’?  Do ya make a habit outta inspectin’ people?”Stan teased.

               “It depends.”

               “On what?”

               “If gnomes count as people.”

               “Geez, Ford, I was just jokin’,”Stan said.  “Why do ya go aroundinspectin’ gnomes?”  He carefully coveredDanny’s ears.  “Messin’ with those lilbastards is just askin’ for trouble.” Danny shook her head until he removed his hands.  She made a satisfied noise and snuggled closeto him.  

               “Horshe ish the besht metaphor,”Lute said.  “Yer lookin’ ad my teef,after all.”  Lute opened his mouth wideto demonstrate.  

               “Oh, mind keeping your mouthopen for a few minutes?” Ford said quickly. “I need to sketch your fangs.”

               “…No,” Lute said, closing hismouth.  “I ain’t an ekshperiment.”

               “Very well,” Ford said with asigh.  “I’ll have to collect data on vampiresthrough some other method, then.”

               “Dat’sh what yer doin’?” Lutedemanded.  “Yer shupposhed to be curin’me, nod shtudyin’ me fer yer journal!” He crossed his arms.  “I mean itdish time.  No more vishits to dis dangtown.  I don’t care how many cute nieshesI’ve god.”

[toomanysinks]

Transportation Weekly: Amazon’s secret acquisition and all the AV feels

Welcome to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. I cover all the ways people and goods move from Point A to Point B — today and in the future — whether it’s by bike, bus, scooter, car, train, truck, robotaxi or rocket. Sure, let’s include hyperloop and eVTOLs, or air taxis, too.

Yup, another transportation newsletter. But I promise this one will be different. Here’s how.

Newsletters can be great mediums for curated news — a place that rounds up all the important articles a reader might have missed in any given week. We want to do a bit more.

We’re doubling down on the analysis and adding a heaping scoop of original reporting and well, scoops. You can expect Q&As with the most interesting people in transportation, insider tips, and data from that white paper you didn’t have time to read. This isn’t a lone effort either. TechCrunch senior reporter Megan Rose Dickey, who has been writing about micro mobility since before the scooter boom times of 2017, will be weighing in each week in our “Tiny But Mighty Mobility” section below. Follow her @meganrosedickey.

Consider this a soft launch. There might be content you like or something you hate. Feel free to reach out to me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share those thoughts, opinions, or tips.

Eventually, we’ll have a way for readers to sign up and have Transportation Weekly delivered each week via email. For now, follow me on Twitter @kirstenkorosec to ensure you see it each week.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff.

ONM …

There are OEMs in the automotive world. And here, (wait for it) there are ONMs — original news manufacturers.

This is where investigative reporting, enterprise pieces and analysis on transportation will live.

We promised scoops in Transportation Weekly and here is one. If you don’t know journalist Mark Harris, you should. He’s an intrepid gumshoeing reporter who TechCrunch has been lucky enough to hire as a freelancer. Follow him @meharris.

Amazon quietly acquired robotics company Dispatch to build Scout

Remember way back in January when Amazon introduced Scout, their autonomous delivery bot? There was speculation at the time that Amazon had bought the Estonian-based company Starship Technologies. Harris did some investigating and discovered some of the intellectual property and technology behind Scout likely came from a small San Francisco startup called Dispatch that Amazon stealthily acquired in 2017.

It’s time to stop thinking about Amazon as just an e-commerce company. It’s a gigantic logistics company, probably the biggest on the planet, with a keen interest — and the cash to pursue those interests — in automation. Think beyond Scout. In fact, wander on down this post to the deal of the week.

Dig In

Each week, transportation weekly will spend a little extra time on an approach, policy, tech or the people behind it in our ‘Dig In” section. We’ll run the occasional column here, too.

This week features a conversation with Dmitri Dolgov, the CTO and VP of engineering at Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet.

Ten years ago, right around now, about a dozen engineers started working on Project Chauffeur, which would turn into the Google self-driving project and eventually become an official company called Waymo. Along the way, the project would give rise to a number of high-profile engineers who would go on to create their own companies. It’s a list that includes Aurora co-founder Chris Urmson, Argo AI co-founder Bryan Salesky and Anthony Levandowski, who helped launch Otto and more recently Pronto.ai.

What might be less known is that many of those in the original dozen are still at Waymo, including Dolgov, Andrew Chatham, Dirk Haehnel, Nathaniel Fairfield and Mike Montemerlo.

Dolgov and I talked about the early days, challenges and what’s next. A couple of things that stood out during our chat.

There is a huge difference between having a prototype that can do something once or twice or four times versus building a product that people can start using in their daily lives. And it is, especially in this field, very easy to make progress on these kinds of one-off challenges.

Dolgov’s take on how engineers viewed the potential of the project 10 years ago …

I also use our cars every day to get around, this is how I got to work today. This is how I run errands around here in Mountain View and Palo Alto.

A little bird …

We hear a lot. But we’re not selfish. Let’s share. An early investor, or investors, in Bird appear to be selling some of their shares in the scooter company, per a tip backed up by data over at secondary trading platform EquityZen. That’s not crazy considering the company is valued at $2 billion-ish. Seed investors should take some money off the table once a company reaches that valuation.

We’ve heard that David Sacks at Craft Ventures hasn’t sold a single Bird share. We hear Tusk Ventures hasn’t sold, either. That leaves a few others, including Goldcrest Capital, which was the lone seed investor, and then Series A participants Lead Edge Capital, M13, and Valor Equity Partners.

Got a tip or overheard something in the world of transportation? Email me or send a direct message to @kirstenkorosec.

While you’re over at Twitter, check out this cheeky account @SDElevator. We can’t guarantee how much of the content is actually “overheard” and how much is manufactured for the laughs, but it’s a fun account to peruse from time to time.

“Is this really the state of VC today?” https://t.co/GmPhv3FN6q

— SelfDrivingElevator (@SDElevator) February 7, 2019

Another new entrant to the mobility parody genre is @HeardinMobilty.

Deal of the week

There’s so much to choose from this week, but Aurora’s more than $530 million Series B funding round announced Thursday morning is the winner.

The upshot? It’s not just that Aurora is now valued at more than $2.5 billion. The primary investors in the round — Sequoia as lead and “significant” investments from Amazon and T. Rowe Price — suggests Aurora’s full self-driving stack is headed for other uses beyond shuttling people around in autonomous vehicles. Perhaps delivery is next.

And believe it or not, the type of investor in this round tells me that we can expect another capital raise. Yes, Aurora has lots of runway now as well as three publicly named customers. But investors like Sequoia, which led the round and whose partner Carl Eschenbach is joining Aurora’s board, T. Rowe Price and Amazon along with repeaters like Index Ventures (general partner Mike Volpi is also on the board) have patience, access to cash and long-term strategic thinking. Expect more from them.

Other deals that got our attention this week:

Lime raises $310 million

Self-driving truck startup Ike raises $52 million

Tesla’s acquisition of Maxwell Technologies for $218 million

Online car retail platform BrumBrum raises $23 million led by Accel

Car subscription service Cluno raises $28 million led by Valar Ventures, the firm founded by Peter Thiel

Snapshot

Speaking of deals and Tesla … the automaker’s $218 million acquisition this month of Maxwell Technologies got me thinking about companies it has targeted in the past.

So, we went ahead and built a handy chart to provide a snapshot view of some of Tesla’s noteworthy acquisitions. 

One note: Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in 2018 that the company had acquired trucking carrier companies to help improve its delivery logistics. We’ve dug in and have yet to land on the company, or companies, Tesla acquired.

The deals that got away are just as interesting. That list includes a reported $325 million offer to buy Simbol Materials, the startup that was extracting small amounts of lithium near the Salton Sea east of San Diego.

Tiny but mighty mobility

Between Lime’s $310 million Series D round and the seemingly never-ending battle to operate electric scooters in San Francisco, it’s clear that micro mobility is not so micro.

Lime, a shared electric scooter and bikeshare startup, has now raised north of $800 million in total funding, surpassing key competitor Bird’s total funding of $415 million. Thanks to this week’s round of funding, Lime’s micromobility business is now worth $2.4 billion.

Lime currently operates its bikes and scooters in more than 100 cities worldwide. Over in San Francisco, however, Lime has yet to deploy any of its modes of transportation. Since last March, there’s been an ongoing battle among scooter operators to deploy their services in the city. The city ultimately selected Skip and Scoot for the pilot programs, leaving the likes of Lime, Uber’s JUMP and Spin to appeal the decision.

A neutral hearing officer has since determined SF’s process for determining scooter operators was fair, but the silver lining for the likes of JUMP, Spin and most likely, Lime, is that the city may open up its pilot program to allow additional operators beginning in April.

Notable reads

Two recent studies got my attention.

The first is from Bike Pittsburgh, an advocacy group and partner of Uber, that published the findings from its latest AV survey based on responses from local residents. The last time they conducted a similar survey was in 2017.

The takeaway: people there, who are among the most exposed to autonomous vehicles due to all the AV testing on public roads, are getting used to it. A bit more than 48 percent of respondents said they approve of public AV testing in Pittsburgh, down slightly from 49 percent approval rating in 2017. 

21.21% somewhat approve

11.62% neutral

10.73% somewhat disapprove

8.73% disapprove

One standout result was surrounding responses about the fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona involving a self-driving Uber that struck and killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in March 2018. Survey participants were asked “As a pedestrian or a bicyclist how did this change event and it’s outcome change your opinion about sharing the road with AVs?”

Some 60 percent of respondents claimed no change in their opinion, with another 37 percent claiming that it negatively changed their opinion. Nearly 3 percent claimed their opinion changed positively toward the technology.

Bike Pittsburgh noted that the survey elicited passionate open-ended responses. 

“The incident did not turn too many people off of AV technology in general,” according to Bike Pittsburgh. “Rather it did lead to a growing distrust of the companies themselves, specifically with Uber and how they handled the fatality.”

The other study, Securing the Modern Vehicle: A Study of Automotive Industry Cybersecurity Practices, was released by Synopsys, Inc.and SAE International.

The results, based on a survey of global automotive manufacturers and suppliers conducted by Ponemon Institute, doesn’t assuage my concerns. If anything, it puts me on alert.

84% of automotive professionals have concerns that their organizations’ cybersecurity practices are not keeping pace with evolving technologies

30% of organizations don’t have an established cybersecurity program or team

63% test less than half of the automotive technology they develop for security vulnerabilities.

Testing and deployments

Pilots, pilots everywhere. A couple of interesting mobility pilots and deployments stand out.

Optimus Ride, the Boston-based MIT spinoff, has made a deal with Brookfield Properties to provide rides in its small self-driving vehicles at Halley Rise – a new $1.4 billion mixed-use development in Virginia. 

This is an example of where we see self-driving vehicles headed — for now. Small deployments that are narrowly focused in geography with a predictable customer base are the emerging trend of 2019. Expect more of them.

And there’s a reason why, these are the kinds of pilots that will deliver the data needed to improve their technology, as well as test out business models —gotta figure out how to money with AVs eventually — hone in fleet operational efficiency, placate existing investors while attracting new ones, and recruit talent.

Another deployment in the more conventional ride-hailing side of mobility is with Beat, the startup that has focused its efforts on Latin America.

Beat was founded by Nikos Drandakis in 2011 initially as Taxibeat. The startup acquired by Daimler’s mytaxi in February 2017 and Drandakis still runs the show. The company was focused on Europe but shifted to Latin America, and it’s made all the difference. (Beat is still available in Athens, Greece.) Beat has launched in Lima, Peru, Santiago, Chile and Bogota, Colombia and now boasts 200,000 registered drivers. 

Now it’s moving into Mexico, where more competitors exist. The company just started registering and screening drivers in Mexico City as it prepares to offer rides for passengers this month. 

TechCrunch spoke at length with Drandakis. Look out for a deeper dive soon.

Until next week, nos vemos.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/08/transportation-weekly-amazons-secret-acquisition-and-all-the-av-feels/

[fmservers]

Transportation Weekly: Amazon’s secret acquisition and all the AV feels

Welcome to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. I cover all the ways people and goods move from Point A to Point B — today and in the future — whether it’s by bike, bus, scooter, car, train, truck, robotaxi or rocket. Sure, let’s include hyperloop and eVTOLs, or air taxis, too.

Yup, another transportation newsletter. But I promise this one will be different. Here’s how.

Newsletters can be great mediums for curated news — a place that rounds up all the important articles a reader might have missed in any given week. We want to do a bit more.

We’re doubling down on the analysis and adding a heaping scoop of original reporting and well, scoops. You can expect Q&As with the most interesting people in transportation, insider tips, and data from that white paper you didn’t have time to read. This isn’t a lone effort either. TechCrunch senior reporter Megan Rose Dickey, who has been writing about micro mobility since before the scooter boom times of 2017, will be weighing in each week in our “Tiny But Mighty Mobility” section below. Follow her @meganrosedickey.

Consider this a soft launch. There might be content you like or something you hate. Feel free to reach out to me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share those thoughts, opinions, or tips.

Eventually, we’ll have a way for readers to sign up and have Transportation Weekly delivered each week via email. For now, follow me on Twitter @kirstenkorosec to ensure you see it each week.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff.

ONM …

There are OEMs in the automotive world. And here, (wait for it) there are ONMs — original news manufacturers.

This is where investigative reporting, enterprise pieces and analysis on transportation will live.

We promised scoops in Transportation Weekly and here is one. If you don’t know journalist Mark Harris, you should. He’s an intrepid gumshoeing reporter who TechCrunch has been lucky enough to hire as a freelancer. Follow him @meharris.

Amazon quietly acquired robotics company Dispatch to build Scout

Remember way back in January when Amazon introduced Scout, their autonomous delivery bot? There was speculation at the time that Amazon had bought the Estonian-based company Starship Technologies. Harris did some investigating and discovered some of the intellectual property and technology behind Scout likely came from a small San Francisco startup called Dispatch that Amazon stealthily acquired in 2017.

It’s time to stop thinking about Amazon as just an e-commerce company. It’s a gigantic logistics company, probably the biggest on the planet, with a keen interest — and the cash to pursue those interests — in automation. Think beyond Scout. In fact, wander on down this post to the deal of the week.

Dig In

Each week, transportation weekly will spend a little extra time on an approach, policy, tech or the people behind it in our ‘Dig In” section. We’ll run the occasional column here, too.

This week features a conversation with Dmitri Dolgov, the CTO and VP of engineering at Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet.

Ten years ago, right around now, about a dozen engineers started working on Project Chauffeur, which would turn into the Google self-driving project and eventually become an official company called Waymo. Along the way, the project would give rise to a number of high-profile engineers who would go on to create their own companies. It’s a list that includes Aurora co-founder Chris Urmson, Argo AI co-founder Bryan Salesky and Anthony Levandowski, who helped launch Otto and more recently Pronto.ai.

What might be less known is that many of those in the original dozen are still at Waymo, including Dolgov, Andrew Chatham, Dirk Haehnel, Nathaniel Fairfield and Mike Montemerlo.

Dolgov and I talked about the early days, challenges and what’s next. A couple of things that stood out during our chat.

There is a huge difference between having a prototype that can do something once or twice or four times versus building a product that people can start using in their daily lives. And it is, especially in this field, very easy to make progress on these kinds of one-off challenges.

Dolgov’s take on how engineers viewed the potential of the project 10 years ago …

I also use our cars every day to get around, this is how I got to work today. This is how I run errands around here in Mountain View and Palo Alto.

A little bird …

We hear a lot. But we’re not selfish. Let’s share. An early investor, or investors, in Bird appear to be selling some of their shares in the scooter company, per a tip backed up by data over at secondary trading platform EquityZen. That’s not crazy considering the company is valued at $2 billion-ish. Seed investors should take some money off the table once a company reaches that valuation.

We’ve heard that David Sacks at Craft Ventures hasn’t sold a single Bird share. We hear Tusk Ventures hasn’t sold, either. That leaves a few others, including Goldcrest Capital, which was the lone seed investor, and then Series A participants Lead Edge Capital, M13, and Valor Equity Partners.

Got a tip or overheard something in the world of transportation? Email me or send a direct message to @kirstenkorosec.

While you’re over at Twitter, check out this cheeky account @SDElevator. We can’t guarantee how much of the content is actually “overheard” and how much is manufactured for the laughs, but it’s a fun account to peruse from time to time.

“Is this really the state of VC today?” https://t.co/GmPhv3FN6q

— SelfDrivingElevator (@SDElevator) February 7, 2019

Another new entrant to the mobility parody genre is @HeardinMobilty.

Deal of the week

There’s so much to choose from this week, but Aurora’s more than $530 million Series B funding round announced Thursday morning is the winner.

The upshot? It’s not just that Aurora is now valued at more than $2.5 billion. The primary investors in the round — Sequoia as lead and “significant” investments from Amazon and T. Rowe Price — suggests Aurora’s full self-driving stack is headed for other uses beyond shuttling people around in autonomous vehicles. Perhaps delivery is next.

And believe it or not, the type of investor in this round tells me that we can expect another capital raise. Yes, Aurora has lots of runway now as well as three publicly named customers. But investors like Sequoia, which led the round and whose partner Carl Eschenbach is joining Aurora’s board, T. Rowe Price and Amazon along with repeaters like Index Ventures (general partner Mike Volpi is also on the board) have patience, access to cash and long-term strategic thinking. Expect more from them.

Other deals that got our attention this week:

Lime raises $310 million

Self-driving truck startup Ike raises $52 million

Tesla’s acquisition of Maxwell Technologies for $218 million

Online car retail platform BrumBrum raises $23 million led by Accel

Car subscription service Cluno raises $28 million led by Valar Ventures, the firm founded by Peter Thiel

Snapshot

Speaking of deals and Tesla … the automaker’s $218 million acquisition this month of Maxwell Technologies got me thinking about companies it has targeted in the past.

So, we went ahead and built a handy chart to provide a snapshot view of some of Tesla’s noteworthy acquisitions. 

One note: Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in 2018 that the company had acquired trucking carrier companies to help improve its delivery logistics. We’ve dug in and have yet to land on the company, or companies, Tesla acquired.

The deals that got away are just as interesting. That list includes a reported $325 million offer to buy Simbol Materials, the startup that was extracting small amounts of lithium near the Salton Sea east of San Diego.

Tiny but mighty mobility

Between Lime’s $310 million Series D round and the seemingly never-ending battle to operate electric scooters in San Francisco, it’s clear that micro mobility is not so micro.

Lime, a shared electric scooter and bikeshare startup, has now raised north of $800 million in total funding, surpassing key competitor Bird’s total funding of $415 million. Thanks to this week’s round of funding, Lime’s micromobility business is now worth $2.4 billion.

Lime currently operates its bikes and scooters in more than 100 cities worldwide. Over in San Francisco, however, Lime has yet to deploy any of its modes of transportation. Since last March, there’s been an ongoing battle among scooter operators to deploy their services in the city. The city ultimately selected Skip and Scoot for the pilot programs, leaving the likes of Lime, Uber’s JUMP and Spin to appeal the decision.

A neutral hearing officer has since determined SF’s process for determining scooter operators was fair, but the silver lining for the likes of JUMP, Spin and most likely, Lime, is that the city may open up its pilot program to allow additional operators beginning in April.

Notable reads

Two recent studies got my attention.

The first is from Bike Pittsburgh, an advocacy group and partner of Uber, that published the findings from its latest AV survey based on responses from local residents. The last time they conducted a similar survey was in 2017.

The takeaway: people there, who are among the most exposed to autonomous vehicles due to all the AV testing on public roads, are getting used to it. A bit more than 48 percent of respondents said they approve of public AV testing in Pittsburgh, down slightly from 49 percent approval rating in 2017. 

21.21% somewhat approve

11.62% neutral

10.73% somewhat disapprove

8.73% disapprove

One standout result was surrounding responses about the fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona involving a self-driving Uber that struck and killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in March 2018. Survey participants were asked “As a pedestrian or a bicyclist how did this change event and it’s outcome change your opinion about sharing the road with AVs?”

Some 60 percent of respondents claimed no change in their opinion, with another 37 percent claiming that it negatively changed their opinion. Nearly 3 percent claimed their opinion changed positively toward the technology.

Bike Pittsburgh noted that the survey elicited passionate open-ended responses. 

“The incident did not turn too many people off of AV technology in general,” according to Bike Pittsburgh. “Rather it did lead to a growing distrust of the companies themselves, specifically with Uber and how they handled the fatality.”

The other study, Securing the Modern Vehicle: A Study of Automotive Industry Cybersecurity Practices, was released by Synopsys, Inc.and SAE International.

The results, based on a survey of global automotive manufacturers and suppliers conducted by Ponemon Institute, doesn’t assuage my concerns. If anything, it puts me on alert.

84% of automotive professionals have concerns that their organizations’ cybersecurity practices are not keeping pace with evolving technologies

30% of organizations don’t have an established cybersecurity program or team

63% test less than half of the automotive technology they develop for security vulnerabilities.

Testing and deployments

Pilots, pilots everywhere. A couple of interesting mobility pilots and deployments stand out.

Optimus Ride, the Boston-based MIT spinoff, has made a deal with Brookfield Properties to provide rides in its small self-driving vehicles at Halley Rise – a new $1.4 billion mixed-use development in Virginia. 

This is an example of where we see self-driving vehicles headed — for now. Small deployments that are narrowly focused in geography with a predictable customer base are the emerging trend of 2019. Expect more of them.

And there’s a reason why, these are the kinds of pilots that will deliver the data needed to improve their technology, as well as test out business models —gotta figure out how to money with AVs eventually — hone in fleet operational efficiency, placate existing investors while attracting new ones, and recruit talent.

Another deployment in the more conventional ride-hailing side of mobility is with Beat, the startup that has focused its efforts on Latin America.

Beat was founded by Nikos Drandakis in 2011 initially as Taxibeat. The startup acquired by Daimler’s mytaxi in February 2017 and Drandakis still runs the show. The company was focused on Europe but shifted to Latin America, and it’s made all the difference. (Beat is still available in Athens, Greece.) Beat has launched in Lima, Peru, Santiago, Chile and Bogota, Colombia and now boasts 200,000 registered drivers. 

Now it’s moving into Mexico, where more competitors exist. The company just started registering and screening drivers in Mexico City as it prepares to offer rides for passengers this month. 

TechCrunch spoke at length with Drandakis. Look out for a deeper dive soon.

Until next week, nos vemos.

Via Kirsten Korosec https://techcrunch.com

[stillfeelthatrushinmyveins]

Hi Mandy! Ik you go to a fair amount of concerts and i was wondering if you knew how much tickets usually cost? I really want to see the mania tour and I know we don't know the exact price of tickets yet but do you think you could even estimate the price range?

Yeah for sure!! Arena tickets that I get are lower lever which are usually $55 plus with presale there’s usually $15 in fees or around $70 ish.