Mission Everywhere

Nairobi based internet hardware and service startup BRCK and Egyptian ride-hail venture Swvl are partnering to bring WiFI and online entertainment to on-demand bus service in Kenya. BRCK will install its routers on Swvl vehicles in Kenya and run its Moja service, which offers free public WiFi—internet, music, and entertainment—subsidized by commercial partners. Founded in Cairo in 2017, Swvl is a mass transit service that has positioned itself as an Uber for shared buses. “Think ride hailing, but with a bus…and instead of the vehicle coming to you…you go to the bus, and the bus picks you up at a certain point and time,” Swvl’s general manager for Kenya, Shivachi Muleji, told TechCrunch via email. The company raised a $42 million Series B round in June , with intent to expand in Africa, Swvl CEO Mostafa Kandil said in an interview . In Kenya, BRCK has installed 15 of its units in Swvl buses and looks to offer its Moja WiFi service in 700 by 2020, BRCK’s chief operating officer...

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat : Amazon announces general availability of Neural Text-to-Speech and “newscaster style” in Amazon Polly, its cloud service that converts text to speech   —  Not to be outdone by Google's WaveNet, which mimics things like stress and intonation in speech by identifying tonal patterns … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2STvCso

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said, as president, he would allow gig workers to unionize. "There are people in the gig economy who go through more jobs in a week than my parents went through in their lifetime," Buttigieg said during the debate. "That's why I propose that we allow gig workers to unionize because a gig is a job and a worker is a worker." Organizing among some gig-economy workers is already beginning. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said he would allow gig workers to unionize to "put the interest of workers first." "There are people in the gig economy who go through more jobs in a week than my parents went through in their lifetime," Buttigieg said during the debate when answering a question about trade. "That's why I propose that we allow gig workers to unionize, because a gig is a job and a worker is a worker...

Daniel Kuhn / CoinDesk : US files ~$100M lawsuit against BTC-e crypto exchange and a co-owner for alleged crimes including conspiracy, money laundering, and unlawful money transactions   —  According to a court document filed on July 25 in the Northern District of California, BTC-e and its executive Alexander Vinnik … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2LQPsDD

As it forecast earlier this month, Samsung reported a steep drop in its second-quarter earnings due to lower market demand for chips and smartphones. The company said its second-quarter operating profit fell 55.6% year-over-year to 6.6 trillion won (about $5.6 billion), on consolidated revenue of 56.13 trillion won, slightly above the guidance it issued three weeks ago . Last quarter, Samsung also reported that its operating profit had dropped by more than half . The same issues that hit its earnings during the first quarter of this year have continued, including lower memory prices as major datacenter customers adjust their inventory, meaning they are currently buying less chips (the weak market also impacted competing semiconductor maker SK Hynix’s quarterly earnings ). Samsung reported that its chip business saw second-quarter operating profit drop 71% year-over-year to 3.4 trillion won, on consolidated revenue of 16.09 trillion won. In the second half of the year, the company exp...

There’s a double standard when it comes to the sexualities of men versus women, trans and gender non-conforming folks. Unbound and Dame Products , two sex tech startups, have teamed up to bring attention to the issue. By launching a website, “ Approved, Not Approved ” and staging a protest outside Facebook’s NYC headquarters, the two startups hope to bring more awareness to the company’s advertising guidelines that seem to favor products that cater to cisgender men. The point of the digital campaign is to show how ads for sex toys and products geared toward men are more likely to be approved than those for women, trans or gender non-conforming people. “For so long, advertisements have been how we continue to reinforce the status quo of what we view as societally desirable and validating,” Dame Products CEO Alexandra Fine told TechCrunch. “Since we’re in a category that’s often denied, we wanted to create an experience that illuminates the disparity.” On Facebook, for example, it’s ...

Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet : Samsung posts Q2 operating profit of ~$5.6B, down 56% YoY, on revenue of ~$47.4B, down 4% YoY, after profits from its chip and mobile businesses declined YoY   —  Samsung expects “persistent uncertainties” in the memory business for the remainder of the year but will pursue an aggressive investment plan in the second half. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2LQlRdx