South Korean tech giant Naver launches crypto wallet in partnership with Chiliz

by with No Comment Tech

Blockchain nodes as blue cubes.

Image Credits: Medesulda / Getty Images

Many tech companies are expanding their reach into the web3 market, integrating blockchain and web3 technologies into their products and services. In the latest development, South Korean internet giant Naver is launching its first digital asset wallet, Naver Pay Wallet, for the Korean market. It is partnering with Chiliz, a blockchain provider for sports and entertainment, as the inaugural blockchain for the wallet.

Naver Pay is a mobile payment service from Naver. With its new crypto wallet, Naver Pay Wallet, the company is offering a non-custodial wallet, meaning users directly control their private keys and digital assets.

“The Naver Pay Wallet is not aiming to become a typical crypto wallet, but a service around utility and loyalty blockchain technology,” founder and CEO of Chiliz Alexandre Dreyfus said in an interview with TechCrunch.

In South Korea, more than 97,000 online and offline merchants use Naver Pay, a payment service that started its life on Naver’s e-commerce platform Naver Shopping. The digital asset wallet serves as a valuable testing ground for potential loyalty programs for merchants on Naver utilizing Chiliz blockchain technology, Dreyfus told TechCrunch.

Naver’s digital assets wallet, which is in beta, allows 33 million users to manage their digital assets and enable users to store NFTs. It will also add other functionalities, such as integration with decentralized apps, fan tokens and a loyalty program for Naver’s merchant network, Dreyfus noted.

“The target customers are tech-savvy South Koreans who are already using Naver Pay for digital transactions and are interested in exploring blockchain technology, particularly in the realms of sports, entertainment and digital assets,” Dreyfus said.

Naver Pay CEO Park Sang-jin (left), Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus (right)
Image Credits: Naver

Naver Pay Wallet can compete with other Korean digital payment platforms that are exploring blockchain integration. Still, Naver’s vast user base puts it in a strong position to dominate the market and become the “Google Pay / Apple Pay” of South Korea, Dreyfus explained. Its user-friendly platform will lower the barrier to entry for blockchain technology, accelerating mainstream adoption, Dreyfus added.

The wallet will support the Chiliz Chain as its first blockchain — the strategic partnership between Naver and Chiliz does not involve a direct investment, Dreyfus noted. Naver could add support for more blockchains in future Naver Pay Wallet updates.

Shaped raises $8M Series A and launches its self-serve recommendations and search service

by with No Comment Tech

Shaped founders

Image Credits: Shaped

Whether it’s an online marketplace, store or social media platform, virtually every site today uses some kind of recommendation service to personalize its offerings. Shaped, which is announcing an $8 million Series A funding round today, wants to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to combine the data they already have with large language models and other recommendation systems to offer a personalized user experience.

It’s worth noting that Shaped is a developer-first platform. With that, its customers gain a high level of flexibility. This includes choosing data sources, integration methods, language models (e.g. Llama, CLIP, BERT) and scoring mechanisms for recommendations and search results.

Image Credits: Shaped

The company was founded by CEO Tullie Murrell, CPO Daniel Camilleri and Shai Bruhis (who has since moved on to another venture). Murrell previously worked at Meta/Facebook, where he created the PyTorchVideo project and worked on other video-centric AI projects at Facebook AI Research. Camilleri previously worked at Uber and Afterpay. The two first met about 10 years ago, while participating in a hackathon during their student days in Australia.

“How do we help small businesses build the same kind of hyper-personalized experiences that you’d see in a big tech company? Any of these businesses should be able to do this without having to have thousands of machine learning engineers,” Murrell explained when I asked him about the team’s original vision for Shaped.

Today, Shaped’s customers include brands like the outdoor travel marketplace Outdoorsy, Brazilian grocery delivery app Trela and QVC, which uses it for real-time video recommendations in its mobile app.

Despite launching before the generative AI boom, Shaped was already leveraging many of these cutting-edge techniques due to Murrell’s background in AI research.

Image Credits: Shaped

Early on, Shaped mostly focused on video personalization, but after going through the Y Combinator program in 2022, the team decided to expand into other areas as well. “Going through [YC], talking to customers and looking at the market size, we realized, ‘hey, it’s not the video personalization that really matters here. Why don’t we sell a horizontal personalization platform that can work for all different kinds of media: language, video and audio,’” Murrell said.

Currently, the service can pull in data from a wide variety of sources, ranging from data warehouses like Databricks, Google’s BigQuery and Snowflake, to PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB databases, as well as services like Amplitude, Segment, Google Analytics and Mixpanel. Having all of this data — and critically a lot of user interaction data — is what allows developers to build their custom recommendation systems.

Image Credits: Shaped

The team stressed that its focus is on the developer experience. Shaped doesn’t necessarily cater to a marketing persona but instead aims to give developers the tools and data to build and test these systems. And while the service is mostly code-first, this includes a dashboard that allows them to test their models and examine why the system is giving certain recommendations.

More recently, Shaped also expanded more deeply into search. “We have all this semantic understanding about the users and content, so it’s actually quite easy for us to add on the search packaging. That’s actually a big part of our focus over the next year, becoming this full discovery platform,” Murrell said.

Shaped’s Series A round was led by Madrona Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and executives and founders from Clickhouse, Docusign, Okta, Rippling and StitchFix.

“We first met Shaped CEO and Co-Founder Tullie Murrell over a year ago and were extremely impressed with his understanding of recommendation systems, having built and researched many of these systems while at Meta,” Madrona’s Karan Mehandru and Sabrina Wu wrote in a blog post today. “He has perfect founder-market fit, deep empathy for the customer, and a nuanced understanding of the market and the opportunities. We’ve also had the pleasure of getting to know Dan, Ben, and the rest of the Shaped team, who bring a wealth of experience from Uber, Apple, and other iconic companies.”

X launches underwhelming Grok-powered 'More About This Account' feature

by with No Comment Tech

X (formerly Twitter) logo on a cracked wall

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Since launching xAI last year, Elon Musk has been using X as a sandbox to test some of the Grok model’s AI capabilities.

Beyond the basic chatbot, X uses the model to summarize news and trending events. Now the platform has launched a new feature called “More About This Account” to provide a few AI-powered sentences about a user. It sounds useful enough, but the results are underwhelming.

Paid users will see the “More About This Account” button when they hover over a handle or display name on the web. They can then click on the button to generate an AI-powered synopsis. At times, Grok offers generic info about the account. Other times, it’s dead wrong.

For instance, when I asked Grok about my colleagues Sean O’Kane and Amanda Silberling, Grok gave me a few generic sentences about the type of posts they put out on the platform.

Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch

And alarmingly, Grok made my colleague Jagmeet Singh an expert on Canada, though he hasn’t posted much on the topic.

Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch

Ram Iyer, one of the editors at TechCrunch, is apparently a brunch account.

Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch

When I asked about edtech startup Unacademy’s SVP of design and product, Hardik Pandya, Grok told me about Hardik Pandya, the Indian cricketer.

Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch

In X’s defense, the platform does warn about Grok possibly getting things wrong.

“Grok version 1.5 is an early feature and can make mistakes. Verify its outputs,” the message reads.

Even when Grok is not getting the information wrong, it’s not adding very useful beyond what you can easily learn from looking at the account and bio.

Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch
Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch

Given that Grok has access to X’s data, it should have given better information about users with its new feature. The feature needs a rethink.

Apple Maps launches on the web to challenge Google Maps

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Apple

Apple announced on Wednesday that Apple Maps is now available on the web via a public beta, which means you can now access the service directly from your browser. The launch puts Apple Maps in direct competition with Google Maps, which has long been available on the web.

Maps on the web is accessible in English and is compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, as well as Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs. Apple plans to bring support for additional languages, browsers and platforms in the future.

Apple Maps on the web works like it does on the mobile app. You can get driving and walking directions; order food from the Maps place card; browse curated guides and reviews; and more. Apple plans to bring additional functionality, like its 360-degree panoramic views “Look Around” feature, to the web version in the coming months.

Apple notes that developers can link out to Maps on the web, allowing their users to get driving directions, see detailed place information, and more.

The launch of the web version of Apple Maps comes 12 years after Apple launched the service on the iPhone. By expanding the availability of Apple Maps, the company is seeking to reach more users and take on Google Maps, which has largely been the go-to place for maps on the web.

SpaceX cleared to resume Falcon 9 launches while FAA investigation remains open

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Saul Martinez / Getty Images

Regulators have given SpaceX the all-clear to return to launch with the Falcon 9 rocket two weeks after the vehicle experienced an anomaly on orbit.

It’s a quick turnaround for the space company, which had to conduct an investigation overseen by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, identify the probable cause of the anomaly, and the corrective actions it will take to ensure it doesn’t happen again. This course of action is standard after a rocket launch goes wrong. 

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 experienced a rare issue on orbit after a routine launch of a batch of Starlink satellites on July 11. While launch and stage separation proceeded as expected, the second stage experienced a catastrophic issue. Twenty satellites were deployed, but were in an orbit too low to survive. All of the satellites have reentered the atmosphere and burned up. 

Late Thursday, SpaceX confirmed in an update posted to its website that the problem was due to a liquid oxygen leak in the insulation surrounding the second stage’s single Merlin engine. That leak was due to a crack in a sensing line connected to the pressure sensor, which developed due to a loose clamp in the line and the strain from engine vibration. 

Despite the leak, which occurred during the first firing of the second stage engine on orbit, the mission continued to proceed as normal. But the liquid oxygen made the engine components ultra-cold; as a result, the second attempted firing did not go to plan. Instead of a controlled burn, the engine “experienced a hard start,” SpaceX said, which damaged the engine and caused the upper stage to lose its orientation on orbit. 

SpaceX has removed the failed sense line and sensor on the second stage engine for near-term Falcon 9 launches, which are not used in the flight safety system, the company said. The company has already tested the design change at its rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. The company also conducted additional inspections of all sense lines on its active second stage fleet, leading to “proactive replacement” in some instances, SpaceX added in its update. 

Prior to this issue, SpaceX boasted a 335-launch streak across its Falcon family of rockets. That includes 96 successful launches in 2023 and 69 successful launches this year. 

While the FAA said in a statement that the overall investigation is still open, SpaceX said it had submitted its mishap report to the regulator. 

“After a comprehensive review, the FAA determined no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly that occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 9-3 launch on July 11,” the regulator said in a statement to TechCrunch. “This public safety determination means the Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.”

SpaceX is aiming to conduct its next Falcon 9 launch on July 27. That launch will carry another batch of Starlink satellites to orbit. 

'Fortnite' maker Epic Games launches its app store on iOS in the EU, worldwide on Android

by with No Comment Tech

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 26: The logo of the video game 'Fortnite' developed by Epic Games is displayed during the 'Paris Games Week' on October 26, 2018 in Paris, France. 'Paris Games Week' is an international trade fair for video games and runs from October 26 to 31, 2018. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

Image Credits: Chesnot / Getty Images

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, announced on Friday that it has officially launched its rival iOS app store in the European Union. The Epic Games Store is also launching on Android worldwide.

The app store is launching with games including Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe and Fall Guys. The company says it’s working with developers to launch their games on the Epic Games Store in the future.

Epic Games is also bringing its games to independent mobile store AltStore PAL, which announced yesterday that its app store would be available for free thanks to a grant from Epic Games.

In the future, Epic Games plans to bring its games to Aptoide’s iOS store in the EU and ONE Store on Android, the company said.

Fortnite’s return to iOS comes over four years after Apple first removed the game from its App Store. Its return follows years of legal battles between the two companies, in addition to regulatory changes brought by EU’s Digital Markets Act, which is forcing Apple to open up to new rivals.

“The tide is turning and the mobile ecosystem is finally opening up to competition,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in a statement. “We are grateful to the European Commission for making it possible to launch the Epic Games Store and offer our games to iOS users in the European Union. Now European iOS users and all Android users can access our store and games, as they’ve always been able to do on open platforms like PC and Mac. The fight is far from over, but this is tangible progress for developers and consumers who can begin to benefit from competition and choice.”

The company has published videos to guide users through the steps they have to take to install the Epic Games Store on iOS and Android.

Epic Games says that for now, “the process of installing the Epic Games Store on iOS and Android is lengthy due to Apple and Google introducing intentionally poor-quality install experiences laden by multiple steps, confusing device settings, and scare screens.”

The launch of the Epic Games Store marks the first time Apple is having to face a notable rival looking to challenge its App Store dominance.

Apple Podcasts launches on the web

by with No Comment Tech

Apple Podcasts on web

Image Credits: Apple

Apple Podcasts can now be streamed from the web. Apple announced on Monday that its Apple Podcasts app is now available on all major web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari) in over 170 countries.  

The new dedicated web experience aims to make it easier for anyone with a web browser on any device to access podcasts. Web listening has been available for some time; however, in order to listen to an episode, users had to look up a show on a search engine and go to the show’s Apple Podcasts Preview page. 

Now Apple Podcasts on the web has launched a new interface, allowing users to access features that were previously only available on the app. These include browsing millions of shows, accessing sections like Library and Top Charts, purchasing premium podcast subscriptions, and more. Listeners can sync their Apple Accounts to be able to pause a podcast and save their play progress to listen to later, as well as see their followed shows and subscriptions. Users without an Apple Account can also use the web experience but can only browse and listen. 

Apple Podcasts joins various startups and indie platforms with web-based podcast players, such as Castbox, Podbay, Podcast App, and Podurama, along with music streaming giants YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. 

The addition is likely to be well-received by podcast fans who prefer not to install another app but still want to access certain features. For podcasters, Apple Podcasts on the web allows them to share links to episodes, shows, and channels, thus reaching a wider global audience.

Users can go to podcasts.apple.com to check out the new site.

Cancer survivor launches Oncology Ventures to improve care

by with No Comment Tech

Ben Freeberg - Oncology Ventures

Image Credits: Ben Freeberg / Oncology Ventures

Ben Freeberg was an associate at venture firm Alpha Partners when he suddenly passed out in the middle of the day. He sought medical help, and after running a few diagnostic tests, doctors didn’t find anything wrong with him.

“They told me I was overreacting,” Freeberg told TechCrunch. But a little less than 12 months later, he was diagnosed with Stage 3a cancer, and it became evident that the incident was the beginning of the disease. “If they detected my cancer earlier, I could have avoided multiple surgeries and maybe even a chemotherapy regimen.”

Being a cancer survivor shaped not only his life but also his career. He set his sights on launching a venture fund devoted to improving cancer care and research. Six and a half years after his diagnosis, Freeberg closed the inaugural Oncology Ventures fund with $30 million in committed capital.

It’s a challenging fundraising environment for emerging managers. But Freeberg’s personal experience and his background as a vice president at United Health’s VC arm Optum Ventures and at Thyme Care, a cancer care startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer, helped him. He attracted capital from prominent healthcare institutions including Cardinal Health, City of Hope and Moffitt Cancer Center.

Unlike other cancer-focused VC firms, including Reed Jobs’ Yosemite, which raised $200 million for its debut fund last year, Oncology Ventures doesn’t invest in drug discovery. The firm is focused on startups that improve care with the help of data and tackle challenges from early detection to choosing optimal treatment plans.

“Treating cancer is employers’ top healthcare cost now,” Freeberg said, adding that investing in startups that help decrease expenses and improve outcomes is a significant opportunity.

The firm, which writes checks ranging from $250,000 to $1.5 million, has already backed seven startups, including Gabbi, an early detection platform for breast cancer; Reimagine Care, a provider of virtual-first cancer and recovery care; and OncoveryCare, a teleclinic for cancer survivors.

Freeberg believes his own experience with cancer helps him connect with founders and win competitive deals.

“I’ve had founders tear up during meetings,” he said. “It was refreshing for them to speak with me about their mission and what they are trying to achieve.”

Freeberg, a solo GP, said he intends to eventually bring on another partner.

The firm’s advisory board includes Dr. Lee Newcomer, former chief medical officer of UnitedHealth Group, and Carolyn Starrett, CEO of Flatiron Health, an oncology information startup acquired by Roche for nearly $2 billion.

Threads finally launches its API for developers

by with No Comment Tech

Illustration of the Threads app logo

Image Credits: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto / Getty Images

Meta said today that it finally launched its much-awaited API for Threads so developers can build experiences around it.

Mark Zuckerberg posted about the API launch, saying, “The Threads API is now widely available and coming to more of you soon.”

In a blog post, Threads engineer Jesse Chen said that with the new API, developers can publish posts, fetch their own content, and deploy reply management tools. That means developers can let users hide/unhide or respond to specific replies.

Making the Threads API announcement at the Cannes Festival, the company added that along with these features, it will also allow developers to tap into analytics with measurements such as the number of views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes at the media and account level.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri also posted about the announcement, saying that this move will help “businesses and creators manage their Threads presence at scale.”

In October 2023, Mosseri mentioned the company’s work on the Threads API for the first time. The company launched the API in a closed beta with partners such as Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Social News Desk, Hootsuite, tech news board Techmeme and a few other developers. At that time, Chen said that Meta plans to make the API widely available to developers in June. The company has delivered on the promise.

With the new API launch, the company has also released a reference open source app on GitHub for developers to play around with.

Third-party developers building social networking tools faced a tough 2023, with social networks like Twitter (now X) and Reddit restricting or shutting down API access at different levels. Decentralized social networks such as Mastodon and Bluesky have taken a more developer-friendly approach. But Meta’s Threads is the biggest new social network with more than 150 million users. With Threads integrating with the fediverse and releasing an API, it gives a chance to third-party developers to build some great social media experiences.

Social networks are getting stingy with their data, leaving third-party developers in the lurch

Former Snap engineer launches Butterflies, a social network where AIs and humans coexist

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Butterflies

Butterflies is a social network where humans and AIs interact with each other through posts, comments and DMs. After five months in beta, the app is launching Tuesday to the public on iOS and Android. 

Anyone can create an AI persona, called a Butterfly, in minutes on the app. After that, the Butterfly automatically creates posts on the social network that other AIs and humans can then interact with. Each Butterfly has backstories, opinions and emotions. 

Butterflies was founded by Vu Tran, a former engineering manager at Snap. Vu came up with the idea for Butterflies after seeing a lack of interesting AI products for consumers outside of generative AI chatbots. Although companies like Meta and Snap have introduced AI chatbots in their apps, they don’t offer much functionality beyond text exchanges. Tran notes that he started Butterflies to bring more creativity to humans’ relationships with AI. 

“With a lot of the generative AI stuff that’s taking flight, what you’re doing is talking to an AI through a text box, and there’s really no substance around it,” Vu told TechCrunch. “We thought, OK, what if we put the text box at the end and then try to build up more form and substance around the characters and AIs themselves?”

Butterflies’ concept goes beyond Character.AI, a popular a16z-backed chatbot startup that lets users chat with customizable AI companions. Butterflies wants to let users create AI personas that then take on their own lives and coexist with other. 

When you open the app, you see a traditional social media feed filled with humans and AIs posting updates about their days. For instance, you might see a Butterfly who’s a woodworker post their latest creation. Or you may come across a Butterfly CEO of a Costco in an alternative universe who is hell-bent on keeping hot dogs priced at $1.50 (yes, someone actually created this Butterfly).

Image Credits: Butterflies

The app’s beta phase gave tens of thousands of users access to the social network. During the beta, Vu says users spent an average of one to three hours interacting with AIs on the app. 

“It’s fascinating what people are using Butterflies for,” Vu said. “At Snap, I did a lot of user research, but the behavior on Butterflies is just so new.” Vu says one person spent five hours a day creating 300 personas. He also found that some people connect with other humans on the platform because they resonate over what they have created. 

In one instance, two friends created two Butterflies simultaneously and gave them their own backstories to have them interact on their behalf and see where they end up. Another person created a version of themselves that lived in Game of Thrones’ fictional continent of Westeros, while someone else re-created themselves as a Dungeons & Dragons character. 

Vu says that Butterflies is one of the most wholesome ways to use and interact with AI. He notes that while the startup isn’t claiming that it can help cure loneliness, he says it could help people connect with others, both AI and human. 

“Growing up, I spent a lot of my time in online communities and talking to people in gaming forums,” Vu said. “Looking back, I realized those people could just have been AIs, but I still built some meaningful connections. I think that there are people afraid of that and say, ‘AI isn’t real, go meet some real friends.’ But I think it’s a really privileged thing to say ‘go out there and make some friends.’ People might have social anxiety or find it hard to be in social situations.”

Vu says Butterflies is getting an outpouring of positive feedback. 

The app is free-to-use at launch, but Butterflies may experiment with a subscription model in the future, Vu says. Over time, Butterflies plans to offer opportunities for brands to leverage and interact with AIs.  

The app is mainly being used for entertainment purposes, but in the future, the startup sees Butterflies being used for things like discovery in a way that’s similar to Instagram. 

Butterflies closed a $4.8 million seed round led by Coatue in November 2023. The funding round included participation from SV Angel and strategic angels, many of whom are former Snap product and engineering leaders.