Microsoft is launching an update to its Android launcher today that gives parents the ability to track their kids’ location. This is one out of a number of parent- and kid-focused announcements the company made today. Others include the ability to block sites in Microsoft Edge on Android and the launch of MSN Kids, a new curated news website for children.

At the core of these new features are Microsoft’s family group settings that already allowed you to do things like track a child’s activity on Windows 10 and Xbox One devices or limit screen time in general.

“As a mother to a young and curious daughter, I deeply understand the need for tools to help balance the use of technology in the home as well as out of the home,” writes Shilpa Ranganathan, the General Manager of Microsoft’s Mobile Experiences group, in today’s announcement. “It’s especially near and dear to me as leader of a team building experiences for mobile devices. We emphasize the idea of transparency as a guiding principle for these new experiences.”

The new tracking tool is rolling out with today’s update of the Microsoft Launcher for Android and will put the latest known location of your kids right in its personalized news feed.

I’m not sure how useful blocking access to sites in Edge for Android really is, but if you manage to lock your kids out from Chrome or any other pre-installed browser — and block them from downloading them — then I guess this could work.

As for MSN Kids, Microsoft notes that the site will curate information from trusted sources, including Time for Kids, Popular Science, Sports Illustrated for Kids, National Geographic, and USA TODAY. It’s worth noting that there is no sponsored content or advertising on the site.

At MWC, ZTE promised that its Tempo Go would be the first device to bring Android Oreo (Go Edition) to the States. But, well, stuff happened, and the company’s had a lot bigger things to deal with in the intervening months. Alcatel, however, is on the case with the 1X. 

TCL announced this morning that the budget device will be hitting Amazon some time next week, priced at an extremely affordable $100, unlocked. It will also be arriving at Best Buy and Walmart soon after, no doubt taking advantage of the fact that it’s the only Android Go handset available in the U.S. for the time being.

The specs are unsurprisingly uninspiring. There’s a 960 x 480 5.3-inch screen, a MediaTek chip and 1GB of RAM. The good news, however, is that the new, lightweight version of Google’s mobile operating system is built for exactly those hardware restraints, which means you ought to get a much smoother Android experience than you would on a similarly specced handset running the full OS.

While the operating system is well positioned to get a foothold in developing countries, Google was quick to point out that it wasn’t limiting Android Go’s availability to those parts of the world. But while a number of manufacturers have signed on, none appeared too eager to launch the handsets in the States — well, aside from ZTE, but we all know how that went.

Another Android Go devices is on the way as well, with HMD bringing the Nokia 2.1 to the States in July.

The App Store has seen over 170 billion downloads over the past decade, totaling over $130 billion in consumer spend. This data was shared this morning by app intelligence firm App Annie, which is marking the App Store’s 10th Anniversary with a look back on the store’s growth and the larger trends it’s seen. These figures aren’t the full picture, however – the App Store launched on July 10, 2008 with just 500 applications, but App Annie arrived in 2010. The historical data for this report, therefore, goes from July 2010 through December 2017.

That means the true numbers are even higher that what App Annie can confirm.

The report paints a picture of the continued growth of the App Store over the years, noting that iOS App Store revenue growth outpaces downloads, and that nearly doubled between 2015 to 2017.

iOS device owners apparently love to spend on apps, too.

The iOS App Store only has a 30 percent share of worldwide downloads, but accounts for 66 percent of consumer spend, the report says.

But this isn’t a complete picture of the iOS vs. Android battle, as Google Play isn’t available in China. App Annie’s data is incomplete on this front as it’s not accounting for the third-party Android app stores in China.

China today plays an outsized role, as App Annie has repeatedly reported, in terms of App Store revenue, even without Google Play. In fact, the APAC region accounts for nearly 60 percent of consumer spend – a trend that began in earnest with the October 2014 release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in China.

But when you look back at the App Store trends to date (or, as of July 2010 – which is as far back as App Annie’s data goes), it’s the U.S. that leads by a slim margin. China has quickly caught up but the U.S. is still the top country for all-time downloads, with 40.1 billion to China’s 39.9 billion; and it has generated $36 billion in consumer spend to China’s $27.7 billion.

iPhone users are heavy app users, too, the report notes.

In several markets, users have 100 or more apps installed, including Australia, India, China, Germany, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and France. The U.S., U.K., and Mexico come close, with 96, 90, and 89 average monthly apps installed in 2017, respectively.

Of course the numbers of apps used monthly are much smaller, but still range in the high 30’s to low 40’s, App Annie claims.

The report additionally examines the impact of games, which accounted for only 31 percent of downloads in 2017, but generated 75 percent of the revenue. The APAC regions plays a large role here as well, with 3.4 billion game downloads last year, and $19.3 billion in consumer spend.

Subscriptions, meanwhile, are a newer trend, but one that’s already boosting App Store revenues considerably, accounting for $10.6 billion in consumer spend in 2017. This is driven mainly by media streaming apps like Netflix, Pandora, and Tencent Video, for example, but Tinder makes a notable showing as one of the top five worldwide apps by revenue.

Thanks to subscriptions and other trends, App Annie predicts the worldwide iOS App Store revenue will grow 80 percent from 2017 to $75.7 billion by 2022.

And while the App Store today has over 2 million apps, it has seen over 4.5 million apps released on its store to date. Many of these have been removed by Apple or the developers, which is why the number of live apps is so much lower.

The full report with the charts included is here.

Xiaomi’s very-iPhone-X-looking Mi 8 smartphone was the highlight of its Shenzhen press event today, but the company did also unveil a number of other notable products, including an updated version of its popular fitness band.

The Mi Band has always offered a solid performance at around $30 — to the point that I’ve bought two of them for myself — and the third incarnation pushes things further. Mi Band 3 includes a longer 20 days of battery life per charge, 50-meter water resistance and a new band design that Xiaomi touts as being both more comfortable and more secure on your wrist.

Like the Mi Band 2, the third-gen tracker includes a pulse monitor and the usual fitness tracking. It syncs to the Xiaomi Mi Fit app, with data exportation to other services possible.

The Mi Band isn’t a full-blown fitness band, for example it doesn’t include GPS so it won’t help you track runs on apps like Strava, but at just 69 yuan, or around $25, it is a seriously cheap option. The Mi Band 3 will make its debut in China first, where it’ll come in a choice of red, black and blue. Like most Xiaomi products, we’ll have to wait on details of international availability but it will almost certainly be sold outside of China soon.

Aside from the Mi Band 3 and Mi 8, Xiaomi also unveiled its Mi VR Standalone product, which was developed alongside Facebook-owned Oculus, which is now home to former Xiaomi international executive Hugo Barra. Xiaomi also took the wraps off its largest smart TV to date, the 75-inch Mi TV 4.

Fresh from agreeing its largest acquisition to date with a deal to buy European payment firm iZettle for $2.2 billion, PayPal is on the investment hunt once again after it backed India’s Pine Labs with a $125 million round.

The financing jointly comes from PayPal and Temasek, the sovereign investment fund from the Singaporean government with over $200 billion in assets. Both will take undisclosed “minority shares” in Pine Labs. Sequoia made a seed investment in 2009 and it remains the startup’s largest-single investor, the VC firm said.

The new deal takes New Delhi-based Pine Labs to $208 million raised from investors to date. It previously closed an $82 million investment from PE funds Actis and Altimeter Capital in March of this year at a reported valuation of $900 million. Recent reports speculated on the Temasek investment (but not PayPal) which would give Pine Labs a valuation of over $1 billion, thus vaulting it into the global ‘unicorn’ club. A spokesperson declined to give a confirmed valuation for the latest deal.

Like iZettle, Pine Labs offers a point-of-sale device that covers debit and credit cards, as well as new and increasingly popular digital payment methods that include mobile wallets, and services that support Indian government project UPI. Rather than other traditional POS devices that are common across India, Pine Labs’ is smart and cloud-based.

While that product gives it distribution, the company offers a suite of services for retailers and SMEs which include customer analytics, a transaction dashboard, and loan services. The company’s notable public-facing clients include retailer Croma, Nike, McDonald’s, Apple, KFC, Sony and Samsung.

Since that last investment in March, there’s been a change at the top. Pine Labs appointed board member Vicky Bindra, a former executive with Visa, MasterCard and GE Capital, as its CEO in April to go after international expansion and new services for consumers and banks. That’s also how this new capital will be spent, the company confirmed in an announcement.

In a statement, Bindra said Pine Lab’s annualized transaction volume is $15 billion through a base of around 300,000 payment points. He added that the business is “on track to originate over $1 billion USD of instant loans at point-of-sale terminals for card issuers and partner NBFCs this fiscal year.”

“We’re teaming up with Temasekand PayPal at a time when the Indian payments market is at an inflexion point. We are a leader in the offline payments space, a position that is critical in enabling the ecosystem of online payment products. The investments will help us move a step closer to our vision for building a world-class merchant-centric payments ecosystem,” Pine Labs founder Lokvir Kapoor added via a statement.

Unfortunately for the company, the acquisition has largely been seen as a failure, with the digital health division earning just $62.4 million in 2017, part of Nokia’s overall $27.9 billion in revenue for the year. Because of this, the company announced earlier in May that it would sell the division back to Withings co-founder, Eric Carreel, and today that deal has officially closed (via TechCrunch).

Financial terms were not given for the sale, but it is said to have included 200 employees rejoining Carreel under the Withings brand. Moving forward, Carreel said that the next steps for the renewed Withings brand will be a “relaunch” of its products focused on preventive health coming by the end of 2018.

“I am delighted to start working again with the brilliant teams that made the brand such a great success” said Carreel in a statement. “We have an exciting challenge ahead of us as we continue to push the boundaries of connected health.”

“We are still only just starting to discover what connected health can really bring to people,” said Carreel in a statement. “From now on we must concentrate our efforts on developing tools capable of advanced measurements and the associated services that can help prevent chronic health conditions. Today’s technologies allow us to imagine solutions that have the potential to benefit the lives of millions of people, and our ambition is to ensure that we, as Withings, lead the way with technological advances and intuitive designs.”

Withings offers connected products like scales, activity tracking smart watches, blood pressure monitors, smart thermometers, sleep trackers, and more, and according to TechCrunch it “sounds like it will keep all of these in place” after the relaunch. The news of the deal closing also brought confirmations of an executive shakeup in Nokia, with president Gregory Lee exiting Nokia and Maria Varsellona stepping up to the duty from a chief legal officer position.

In late 2016 Nokia and Apple entered a series of legal battles that began when Nokia sued Apple for patent infringement in the United States and Germany. As the dispute escalated, Apple decided to remove all Withings products from Apple.com and most Apple retail locations around the world, since the connected health devices were at the time under the Nokia umbrella. Although many of the Nokia-branded products have since returned to Apple.com, Withings should have a much easier time selling its smart scales and more when it returns to its original branding scheme later this year.

Pinterest is continuing its push into video as a potential avenue for advertisers by today saying that it will offer advertisers a promoted video tool that takes up the width of the entire screen.

While Pinterest normally offers users a grid that they can flip through — compressing a lot of content into a small space — taking up the full width of the screen with a promoted video would offer advertisers considerable real estate if they’re looking to get the attention of users. Pinterest pitches itself to advertisers as a strong alternative to Facebook or Google, giving marketers a way to reach an audience that behaves a little more differently than when on those other platforms and coming to Pinterest to discover new things.

The company also said it’s hired Tina Pukonen as an entertainment strategist and Mike Chuthakieo as an industry sales lead. Pinterest says more than 42 million people in the U.S. come to Pinterest for entertainment ideas, and that potential tool offers an interesting niche opportunity for advertisers to capture the attention of a user for a product — say, a movie — that needs a lot of awareness marketing. Getting a user’s attention for just a few seconds can be more than enough time to at least plant the seed of potentially buying a product down the line.

It’s that argument that what gives Pinterest potential value for advertisers. The company offers an array of advertising products designed to target users at all phases of a potential buying cycle, whether that’s just clicking around on the platform looking for ideas down to actually saving an idea or buying it — through Pinterest or through a referral. Most of Pinterest’s content consists of images and other content from brands or businesses. That makes sense given that it’s a place where people tend to go to plan life events, whether that’s parties, or weddings, or home improvement — and those events center around products that they may in theory one day buy. All the while Pinterest is accumulating a lot of different plays at advertising products and an experienced level of senior hires, including hiring its first COO Françoise Brougher, who was the former VP of SMB global sales and operations at Google and business lead at Square.

Pinterest, interestingly, seems to have been a little more tolerant of making what might seem like small design changes but may have substantial user implications. The company added a tab for followers at the bottom of the app, shaking up what is often seen as a core navigation bar for any app. But the company continues to grow, crossing 200 million monthly active users in September last year.

Mining hardware is weird stuff. Either it’s commodity hardware used – inefficiently – for complex computation or specifically-designed, expensive boards that can be used to bring in Bitcoin and little else. Asus, a motherboard maker of some renown, is now helping bridge the gap.

The H370 Mining Master is a basic motherboard that supports 20 graphics cards, the boards used for Ethereum and other less resource-intensive scripts. The cards connect via PCIe-over-USB and each port has is individually controlled and managed by on-board diagnostics. This lets you ensure that each graphics card is running properly and fully connected.

From the release:

Less time maintaining your machine means more time mining with it, which is why the H370 Mining Master includes a suite of diagnostic features designed to make your platform easier to manage. Chief among them is GPU State Detection, which scans the system at boot and indicates whether each riser port is empty, connected to a functional graphics card, or experiencing problems. The updated State Detection GUI clearly identifies the location and status of each port along with the alphanumeric code that identifies it. Onboard diagnostics are augmented by individual debug LEDs that light up when there are problems with specific system components, like the CPU or memory.

The boards also has a number of cryptocurrency features that are activated “out of the box.”

The board ships in Q3 2018 for a few hundred dollars – a far cry from the massive costs associated with custom hardware. Now you just need to power all those massive graphics cards to keep the mining gear going.

Glasgow, Scotland – A fresh shot across the bows of British unionism came in the form of the May publication of a Scottish National Party (SNP) report outlining new prospects for Scottish independence.

The 354-page report was commissioned by the pro-independence SNP Scottish government in Edinburgh and endorsed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. It outlines 50 recommendations on a range of economic areas, including banking, immigration and currency.

In 2014, Scots voted 55-45 percent to remain in the United Kingdom in its highly charged independence referendum. Four years on, the constitution remains front-and-centre of Scottish political discourse. 

Today, support for Scottish independence remains at the mid-to-high 40 percent mark.

As Britain continues its Brexit negotiations against the wishes of Scotland’s electorate – who voted by 62-38 percent to remain in the European Union (EU) in the UK-wide referendum of June 2016 – the publication of the dossier reignited simmering constitutional tensions.

“This report is part of a long-term strategy, but there’s not likely to be another independence referendum any time soon,” the University of Edinburgh’s James Mitchell told Al Jazeera.

Mitchell said the report was looking to “address some of the issues that were seen to be weak points in the [2014] independence referendum” ahead of any future sovereignty poll.

Perceived “weak points” included a formal currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of Britain, which was promoted by then-SNP leader Alex Salmond during the 2014 campaign, but ruled out by then-UK chancellor George Osborne just months before the plebiscite itself.

The report’s proposal states a sovereign Scotland should retain the UK pound informally for a transition period after independence before potentially introducing its own currency if six economic tests were met.

Milestone for independence

The report’s publication – as a tool to re-focus minds on the prospect of Scotland one-day making the leap from UK constituent nation to nation-state – was music to the ears of many pro-independence supporters, including SNP councillor Christian Allard.

“This report is important – it’s a milestone to tell us what an independent Scotland could look like,” said Allard, a member of the Scottish Parliament between 2013−2016.

He said the party remains optimistic despite its setback of four years ago.

Scottish unionists, who remain committed to Scotland’s three-century-old place within Britain, see the SNP’s latest offering as an unwanted distraction.

“I don’t think, at the moment, the people of Scotland want to delve back into a full-on independence debate right now,” Conservative Lord Ian Duncan, the UK under-secretary of state for Scotland, told Al Jazeera.

“I’m not detecting an appetite for that in the wider Scottish population.”

For Scottish strength of feeling into revisiting Scotland’s constitutional future, pro-independence advocates point to significant opinion poll support for Scottish statehood, and the likes of a pro-independence march in May in Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, which attracted some 40,000 people.

Unionists, however, point out that opinion poll support for Scottish independence remains below 50 percent. They also note last year’s snap UK general election that saw the SNP drop 21 Westminster seats from the 56 it won in 2015 on account, political observers say, of large elements of Scottish public hostility towards another proposed independence poll.

Yet, despite last year’s general election result, SNP’s drive to keep the flames of sovereignty alive is undiminished. Not only does it occupy a strong position at Westminster – where it is the third-largest party – but it continues to dominate the Scottish Parliament where, combined with the pro-independence Scottish Greens, a parliamentary majority for independence remains. 

‘Get on with the day job’

British constitutional uncertainty over the impact of Brexit has also focussed minds at SNP headquarters, where an independent Scotland remaining in the EU is a cornerstone of SNP policy.

However, party hopes that Brexit would propel the pro-EU-voting Scottish public into majority independence-supporting territory have been left frustrated. But Mitchell contends such a shift could yet transpire.

“Britain voted for Brexit, but we aren’t out of the European Union yet, so there isn’t the perception of the cost of leaving the EU – but that will come in time,” he said.

Allard, a French national who has made Scotland his home for several decades, added the Brexit result has “put a lot of balls in the air again”.

“The kind of country that we thought we would become by Scotland voting No [to independence] has not materialised,” said Allard, referring to pledges made by the unionist campaign during the 2014 referendum that the only way to guarantee Scotland’s place within the EU was to vote No to Scottish statehood.

While a lot of political debate has re-surfaced since the report was published – with Scottish unionists stating SNP should forget independence and “get on with the day job” – not everybody in the pro-independence camp has welcomed the dossier.

Former SNP MP George Kerevan wrote the report betrayed the SNP’s working-class base and was “in danger of robbing the next independence referendum of being a rallying cry of hope for working-class voters”.

Speaking in Brussels after meeting with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Monday, Sturgeon said she still expected to make a decision about a so-called indyref2 this autumn. 

“I stood on a manifesto in [the 2016 Scottish election] and was elected on a manifesto that had the prospect of a second referendum in the context of Brexit. So, the Scottish government has a mandate for that,” she said.

But as Sturgeon weighs her options off the back of a report she has stressed is not SNP policy – but simply recommendations – opponents of Scottish independence are piling on the pressure.

“Nicola Sturgeon has to be very clear that more debate and discussion around independence is going to go somewhere,” said Duncan. “It’s very hard to march your troops up to the top of the hill and then leave them there.”

The Europas Unconference & Awards is back on 3 July in London and we’re excited to announce more speakers and panel sessions as the event takes shape. Crypto and Blockchain will be a major theme this year, and we’re bringing together many of the key players. TechCrunch is once again the key media partner, and if you attend The Europas you’ll be first in the queue to get offers for TC events and Disrupt Europe later in the year.

You can also potentially get your ticket for free just by sharing your own ticket link with friends and followers. See below for the details and instructions.

To recap, we’re jumping straight into our popular breakout sessions where you’ll get up close and personal with some of Europe’s leading investors, founders and thought leaders.

The Unconference is focused into zones including AI, Fintech, Mobility, Startups, Society, and Enterprise and Crypto / Blockchain.

Our Crypto HQ will feature two tracks of panels, one focused on investing and the other on how blockchain is disrupting everything from financial services, to gaming, to social impact to art.

We’ve lined up some of the leading blockchain VCs to talk about what trends and projects excite them most, including Outlier Ventures’ Jamie Burke, KR1’s George McDonaugh, blockchain angel Nancy Fenchay, Fabric Ventures’ Richard Muirhead and Michael Jackson of Mangrove Capital Partners.

Thinking of an ICO vs crowdfunding? Join Michael Jackson on how ICOs are disrupting venture capital and Ali Ganjavian, co-founder of Studio Banana, the creators of longtime Kickstarter darling OstrichPillow to understand the ins and outs of both.

We’ve also lined up a panel to discuss the process of an ICO – what do you need to consider, the highs, the lows, the timing and the importance of community. Linda Wang, founder and CEO of Lending Block, which recently raised $10 million in an April ICO, joins us.

We are thrilled to announce that Civil, the decentralised marketplace for sustainable journalism, will be joining to talk about the rise of fake news and Verisart’s Robert Norton will share his views on stamping out fraud in the art world with blockchain. Min Teo of ConsenSys will discuss blockchain and social impact and Jeremy Millar, head of Consensys UK, will speak on Smart Contracts.

Our Pathfounders Startup Zone is focused purely on startups. Our popular Meet the Press panel is back where some of tech’s finest reporters will tell you what makes a great tech story, and how to pitch (and NOT pitch them). For a start, TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear and Quartz’s Joon Ian Wong are joining.

You’ll also hear from angels and investors including Seedcamp’s Carlos Eduardo Espinal; Eileen Burbidge of Passion Capital; Accel Partners’ Andrei Brasoveanu; Jeremy Yap; Candice Lo of Blossom Capital; Scott Sage of Crane Venture Partners; Tugce Ergul of Angel Labs; Stéphanie Hospital of OneRagtime; Connect Ventures’ Sitar Teli and Jason Ball of Qualcomm Ventures.

Sound great? You can grab your ticket here:

Early bird ticket sales end on Friday! Remember, you can end up getting your ticket for free.

All you need to do is share your personal ticket link. Your friends get 15% off, and you get 15% off again when they buy.

The more your friends buy, the more your ticket cost goes down, all the way to free!

The Public Voting in the awards ends 11 June 2018 11:59: https://ift.tt/2sqYJX3

We’re still looking for sponsor partners to support these editorially curated panels.

Please get in touch with Petra@theeuropas.com for more details.

SPEAKERS SO FAR:

Jamie Burke, Outlier Ventures

Jeremy Millar, ConsenSys

Linda Wang, Lending Block

Robert Norton, Verisart

George McDonaugh, KR1

Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital

Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp

Sitar Teli, Connect Ventures

Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital Partners

Min Teo, ConsenSys

Steve O’Hear, TechCrunch

Joon Ian Wong, Quartz

Richard Muirhead, Fabric Ventures

Nancy Fechnay, Blockchain Technologist + Angel

Candice Lo, Blossom Capital

Scott Sage, Crane Venture Partners

Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel

Tina Baker, Jag Shaw Baker

Jeremy Yap

Candice Lo, Blossom Capital

Tugce Ergul, Angel Labs

Stéphanie Hospital, OneRagtime

Jason Ball, Qualcomm Ventures

The Europas Awards
The Europas Awards are based on voting by expert judges and the industry itself. But key to the daytime is all the speakers and invited guests. There’s no “off-limits speaker room” at The Europas, so attendees can mingle easily with VIPs and speakers.

Vote for your Favourite Startups

Public Voting is still humming along. Please remember to vote for your favourite startups!

Awards by category:

Hottest Media/Entertainment Startup

Hottest E-commerce/Retail Startup

Hottest Education Startup

Hottest Startup Accelerator

Hottest Marketing/AdTech Startup

Hottest Games Startup

Hottest Mobile Startup

Hottest FinTech Startup

Hottest Enterprise, SaaS or B2B Startup

Hottest Hardware Startup

Hottest Platform Economy / Marketplace

Hottest Health Startup

Hottest Cyber Security Startup

Hottest Travel Startup

Hottest Internet of Things Startup

Hottest Technology Innovation

Hottest FashionTech Startup

Hottest Tech For Good

Hottest A.I. Startup

Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year

Hottest GreenTech Startup of The Year

Hottest Startup Founders

Hottest CEO of the Year

Best Angel/Seed Investor of the Year

Hottest VC Investor of the Year

Hottest Blockchain/Crypto Startup Founder(s)

Hottest Blockchain Protocol Project

Hottest Blockchain DApp

Hottest Corporate Blockchain Project

Hottest Blockchain Investor

Hottest Blockchain ICO (Europe)

Hottest Financial Crypto Project

Hottest Blockchain for Good Project

Hottest Blockchain Identity Project

Hall Of Fame Award – Awarded to a long-term player in Europe

The Europas Grand Prix Award (to be decided from winners)

The Awards celebrates the most forward thinking and innovative tech & blockchain startups across over some 30+ categories.

Startups can apply for an award or be nominated by anyone, including our judges. It is free to enter or be nominated.

Instead of thousands and thousands of people, think of a great summer event with 1,000 of the most interesting and useful people in the industry, including key investors and leading entrepreneurs.

• No secret VIP rooms, which means you get to interact with the Speakers

• Key Founders and investors speaking; featured attendees invited to just network

• Expert speeches, discussions, and Q&A directly from the main stage

• Intimate “breakout” sessions with key players on vertical topics

• The opportunity to meet almost everyone in those small groups, super-charging your networking

• Journalists from major tech titles, newspapers and business broadcasters

• A parallel Founders-only track geared towards fund-raising and hyper-networking

• A stunning awards dinner and party which honors both the hottest startups and the leading lights in the European startup scene

• All on one day to maximise your time in London. And it’s sunny (probably)!

That’s just the beginning. There’s more to come…

The app now includes full support for the Touch Bar on recent 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, providing quick access to tools for making color adjustments, choosing effect presets, selecting colors for brushes, and more. The Touch Bar has been designed to offer up the most useful options whenever you switch to a new tool.

New Export for Web features are designed to allow users to prepare and optimize images for the web with advanced compression techniques in just a few clicks. The Pixelmator team says these tools compress images to the smallest size possible without a loss of quality.

Quick Export offers up a web-friendly image optimized with your most-used settings, while a new Slice tool is meant to make it easier to create web designs by slicing images into smaller images with the option of optimizing each one separately.

There are new Auto White Balance, Auto Lightness, and Auto Hue & Saturation tools that are powered by machine learning. These tools are meant to let users make one-click adjustments to optimize photos. Pixelmator says its machine learning algorithm was trained on millions of images to identify the contents of a photo and select the best lighting, contrast, and colors.

Other new features in Pixelmator Pro include support for opening and exporting vector images using the SVG format, support for exporting HEIF images, live previews when formatting text or tweaking layer blend options, a Select Color Range tool for selecting similarly colored areas of an image, and a whole new Tutorials page designed to help new users learn the ins and outs of Pixelmator Pro.

Dozens of other tweaks and bug fixes have been added, with release notes available on the Pixelmator Pro website.

Pixelmator Pro, which requires macOS High Sierra and a Metal-compatible graphics card, can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $59.99. [Direct Link]

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.

There are few scenarios where enjoyable music pumping out of a good speaker is an annoyance. Outdoor gatherings, casual cleaning sessions at home, and parties (big and small) call for entertainment that can be provided through sound.

While speakers and systems are known to be pricey, there are a variety of affordable options that perform exceptionally well. We did some digging and found speakers that are worth buying now—or anytime you need a durable, high-quality speaker.

Computer speakers: Mackie CR3

For listening to music or playing games on your desktop computer, the Mackie CR3 speakers (Amazon) are our top recommendation. The set delivers better sound than you’d expect from computer speakers in this price range. Aside from the decent sound quality, we like the user-friendliness of the Mackie CR3 best. The sturdy speakers have a front AUX input and volume knob for easy access. They can be used with a phone and have acoustic sound pads that minimize transferred vibrations. If Bluetooth is a must, a compatible adapter can enable this set.    

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Portable Bluetooth Speaker: UE Roll 2

Portable Bluetooth speakers are great for taking anywhere. Our top pick, the UE Roll 2, comes with a bungee cord and whether you hang it in the shower or on a tree, it’ll bounce back from a fall. If things get out of hand at your pool party, rest in knowing that it’s waterproof and can be submerged 3 feet underwater for 30 minutes. It has a 60-foot Bluetooth range, and during testing its playback time averaged around 11.5 hours. Its bass is deep and its sound is full enough to entertain intimate or large crowds on a camping trip, picnic, a spot on the beach or at a home get-together.                   

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Portable Bluetooth speaker: EcoXGear GDI-EXBLD810 EcoBoulder+

Some gatherings need a portable Bluetooth speaker that offers bigger sound than an option you can toss around. The EcoXGear GDI-EXBLD810 EcoBoulder+, our “also great” pick, will get the job done at tailgates and large outdoor parties that require high-volume sound. Though its cup holder is made for two, it has a bottle opener on its side to service all of your guests. If they need to use a microphone or speakerphone, it offers these functions, too.

We like its built-in AM/FM radio, long-lasting battery life, waterproof and dust-proof design, and price, which is considerably lower than competitor models. The EcoBoulder+ is large, but it has wheels and a retractable handle that make moving it less of a hassle.                     

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Budget soundbar: Vizio SB3651-E6

A starter home theater setup doesn’t have to be packed with speakers, and it doesn’t have to be super expensive. The basic, affordable route to getting high-quality sound for listening to music and watching TV or movies is to invest in a good soundbar. Our top pick for budget soundbars with sub, the Vizio SB3651-E6, offers the best combination of value, connectivity and performance.

It doesn’t support HDMI 2.0 for external 4K sources, but you can connect video sources (game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc.) to your TV and run an optical or coax cable to the soundbar as a workaround. Its stereo mode will give your setup noticeable surround sound that makes watching movies and TV better. You can also stream music from your phone over Bluetooth, or by using Google Chromecast.

Wireless multiroom speaker systems: Sonos One

Wireless multiroom speaker systems are great for anyone who wants to build out and link a home sound system. If you’re looking for an entry point to the Sonos system, the Sonos One is one of our top recommendations. It’s a newer smart speaker with multiroom functionality, which means you’ll be able to group it with other speakers, or play and control them independently.

While the Sonos One is in the process of being updated to stand as a voice-controlled speaker that works with Apple AirPlay 2, Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa—for now, it’s only Alexa-enabled. Still, we think it’s a great multiroom speaker addition for most homes. The Sonos One sounds impressive on its own, but when you’re ready to add deep bass, a bookshelf speaker, a soundbar or another Sonos One, this pick will pair seamlessly.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Project Fi, Google’s wireless service, is getting support for a number of new phones today. Until now, if you wanted to switch to Fi, the only officially supported phones were Google’s own Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, the Nexus 5X and 6P, as well as the Moto X4 and its Android One variant. Today, Google is adding the Moto G6, as well as LG’s G7 ThinQ and V35 ThinQ phones to this list.

Since Google’s network is a bit different from its competitors, thanks to Fi’s ability to switch between the networks of T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular to provide users access to the strongest signal in a given area, the company has always taken a very strict approach as to which phones it officially supported.

If you want to make the switch to Fi, which also recently introduced its own take on its competitors’ flat-rate plans, then the 32GB version of the 5.7-inch Moto G6 is now available for $199 (discounted from $249). The two LG phones will be coming to Fi next month for their standard retail prices of $899 for the V35 and $749 for the G7. While Google isn’t offering any major outright discount for the LG phones, those who pre-order one will get a $50 Fi credit.

It’s worth noting that the V35, LG’s new a 6-inch flagship phone, only launched today and is essentially a G7 with more RAM, a different display and larger battery. The phone was originally rumored to be an AT&T exclusive, but I guess we can put that idea to rest now.

Both the G7 and Moto G6 have generally received favorable reviews. Google also currently offers the Moto X4 for a heavily discounted $249, but that still makes the G6 the most affordable option for Fi. This may create a bit of confusion for potential users, though, as those are quite similar and it’s hard to figure out which one to pick (just like choosing between the G7 and V35). At the same time, though, it’s nice to see Google add more options for its Project Fi customers.

Segal had served as Director of iTunes International since 2006, covering a wide range of legal and licensing matters for iTunes around the world. She began her new role as Apple’s Global Director of Music Publishing earlier this month, based out of London, England, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The initiative is said to be one of the first major moves from Apple Music’s new global operations chief Oliver Schusser, who was promoted from his previous role as Vice President of iTunes international in April.

The report suggests that the new division will help the Apple Music team to better discover up-and-coming artists, and improve its direct relationships with publishers and songwriters. The division is said to be made up of several subdivisions dedicated to operations, publisher relations, and other areas.

Like her boss Schusser, Segal will likely split her time between London and Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

At CES in January, TechCrunch broke the news that media software maker Plex was planning to expand its service with the addition of new media content, starting with podcasts. Today, it’s making good on that promise by launching support for podcasts into beta, along with a whole new look and more customization options for its Plex mobile apps.

While Plex got its start as a software application for organizing people’s home media collections, it’s been expanding over the past couple of years to add new features in support of cord cutters who want to watch TV via their antenna, and record those shows. It also acquired the streaming news startup Watchup in order to add a dedicated news hub within its app.

Earlier this year, the company spoke of its ambitions to continue adding more types of content to its media center software, including audio and video podcasts, followed by digital, web-first and other longer-form creator content. (It had originally expected to add podcasts in Q1 2018, so this nearly-June launch is a bit of a delay.)

The larger goal, on Plex’s part, is to organize all your media content in one place – from live and recorded TV to your personal media collections of music, photos, and videos, and your news and information – including, now, your favorite podcasts.

The feature, live today in beta, is available on the Plex web platform, Roku, and iOS and Android, with other device support coming soon.

You can browse and search across Plex’s podcast library, filter podcasts by categories, or click into a title to see the details, episode lists, and related podcasts. To follow that podcast, you click the “Add to My Podcasts” button. This will add the podcast to your “On Deck” dashboard, as well.

If the podcast you like isn’t in the Plex catalog, you can add it by entering the feed URL, and Plex will treat it as if it is – it will retrieve all its metadata, related podcasts, and make it searchable. (That’s useful because Plex’s catalog isn’t as robust as others at launch.)

The feature also includes the standard media controls you’d expect, like forward and back and support for variable speed playback, as well as a “mark as played” option, all available through Plex’s upgraded media player. That option can help you transition to Plex’s podcast platform from another app, as you won’t have to lose your place, in terms of what you’ve listened to, and what you’ve not. And it lets you continually mark off any episodes you may have caught elsewhere, or just otherwise want to skip.

Your listening progress is also synced across Plex’s suite of apps.

The feature wasn’t perfect in brief testing, but it was in a pre-launch state, and today it’s only arriving in beta – so it’s too soon to speak to how well it performs as a publicly-facing product.

In a few weeks, Plex will roll out a handful of other features for podcasts, including smart downloading with granular controls for managing the episodes you want to keep on a per show basis (e.g. keep the last three); additional metadata for richer show pages and better discovery options; and podcasts import and export (OPML) so you can move your current subscriptions more easily into Plex.

Along with the launch of podcasts, Plex is updating its mobile apps, too, to offer better customization options.

Now, if you want to listen to your podcasts and news while you’re on the go, on mobile, you can configure the app to show that media on your home screen. Or, if you use the app more for casting your videos to your living room TV, you could bring those favorite shows to the front of the experience instead. And so on.

On this new, customizable home screen you can re-order you content, remove any of its sections (like “Recently Added” or “On Deck,”), or add new ones from elsewhere in the app, including across servers (like Plex Cloud or your local server such as your home PC.)

Plex has also added tabs at the bottom of the screen for switching between your media type (e.g. movies, TV, podcasts, etc.), which are fully customizable, too. You can even customize the default source for each media type.

The addition of podcasts to this more personalized media experience makes sense not only because of how popular podcasts have become, but also because many are tied to the shows you watch – they’re creator commentaries, roundtable discussions, fan chats, critic reviews, and more. It’s easy to imagine, then, moving from watching a show on the TV then heading out and launching the Plex app to listen to the podcast discussing the last episode.

That’s the vision Plex has, at least. However, even with these additions, Plex’s software overall still caters more to the DIY crowd – those who want set up their own antenna, rather than pay for an online TV service like YouTube TV or Sling. And it hasn’t yet solved the problem of media that’s all over the place – favorite shows and movies are strewn across services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon, and it’s hard to know where the things you want to watch reside. Those are still challenges Plex could attack in the future, by becoming a hub that jumps you into streaming catalogs, too.

It’s unclear how well Plex’s expansions have been working to attract new users and paying subscribers.

The company doesn’t break out the latter figure. and it still claims today the same 15 million registered users it had at the beginning of the year. Becoming a podcast player could help bump that number up, though, and introduce more people to Plex’s software, as a result.

Podcasts are in beta on web, mobile and Roku, and the mobile apps are rolling out starting today.

Rumors have suggested we could potentially see new iPad Pro models and perhaps a new iPhone SE, and several Macs are due for a refresh, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, and 12-inch MacBook. We’re also expecting a first-look at next-generation versions of macOS, iOS, and tvOS.

You can watch Apple’s WWDC18 Keynote live as it happens using one of the methods described below. Note that the livestream for the event starts at 10:00am Pacific Time at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. For reference, here’s when the event will begin based on other time zones in the United States and around the world:

• Honolulu, Hawaii — 7:00 a.m. HAST
• Anchorage, Alaska — 9:00 a.m. AKDT
• Cupertino, California — 10:00 a.m. PDT
• Phoenix, Arizona — 10:00 a.m. MST
• Vancouver, Canada — 10:00 a.m. PDT
• Denver, Colorado — 11:00 a.m. MDT
• Dallas, Texas — 12:00 noon CDT
• New York, New York — 1:00 p.m. EDT
• Raleigh, North Carolina — 1:00 p.m. EDT
• Toronto, Canada — 1:00 p.m. EDT
• Halifax, Canada — 2:00 p.m. ADT
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — 2:00 p.m. BRT
• London, United Kingdom — 6:00 p.m. BST
• Berlin, Germany — 7:00 p.m. CEST
• Paris, France — 7:00 p.m. CEST
• Cape Town, South Africa — 7:00 p.m. SAST
• Moscow, Russia — 8:00 p.m. MSK
• Helsinki, Finland — 8:00 p.m. EEST
• Istanbul, Turkey — 8:00 p.m. TRT
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates — 9:00 p.m. GST
• Delhi, India — 10:30 p.m. IST
• Jakarta, Indonesia — 12:00 a.m. WIB next day
• Shanghai, China — 1:00 a.m. CST next day
• Singapore — 1:00 a.m. SGT next day
• Perth, Australia — 1:00 a.m. AWST next day
• Hong Kong — 1:00 a.m. HKT next day
• Seoul, South Korea — 2:00 a.m. KST next day
• Tokyo, Japan — 2:00 a.m. JST next day
• Adelaide, Australia — 2:30 a.m. ACST next day
• Sydney, Australia — 3:00 a.m. AEST next day
• Auckland, New Zealand — 5:00 a.m. NZST next day

MacRumors will also provide a live blog both here on MacRumors.com and on our MacRumorsLive Twitter account, along with detailed coverage of everything Apple announces during the week.

Watch the Keynote on Mac, iPhone or iPad

You can watch the WWDC keynote live on any Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using Apple’s native Safari browser. Bear in mind, to meet the stream’s requirements, iOS devices must be running iOS 10 or later, while Macs need to be running macOS Sierra 10.12 or later.

Launch Safari from your chosen device and follow this link to the WWDC18 Livestream.

Watch the Keynote on Apple TV

You can watch the WWDC keynote live on an Apple TV. Fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV owners will need to download the Apple Events app from the tvOS App Store (see the steps below). Owners of earlier generation devices should see the Apple Events button automatically appear in their Home screen menu. (Second-generation Apple TV or later can also AirPlay the stream from another Apple device running Safari, as described above.)

1. Open the App Store from the Home screen.
   
2. Scroll down to the News category and select Apple Events. Alternatively, input “Apple Events” into the Search field and select it from the results.
   
3. Click the Get button to download the app.
   
   
4. Wait for the button to change to Open, and click it again. Alternatively, select the Apple Events app on your Home screen.

The app will tell you to tune in at your local time on June 4 to watch the event live (18:00 BST in our example), so clicking on the WWDC18 keynote button won’t do much until then. Meantime, you do have the option to watch the previous three Apple Events while you wait, including last year’s WWDC keynote.

Watch the Keynote on a Windows PC

If you don’t have an Apple device handy, you can still watch the WWDC18 keynote on a PC running Windows 10. Open Microsoft Edge browser and follow this link to the WWDC18 Livestream.

While Apple offers no guarantees, other platforms may also be able to access the WWDC18 livestream using recent versions of Chrome or Firefox (MSE, H.264, and AAC codecs/extensions must be installed).

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has announced elections will be held on July 30, the first without long-time former leader Robert Mugabe on the ballot.

Mnangagwa became president in November after an intervention by the army ousted Mugabe.

“The Zimbabwe election commission is hereby advised to fix Monday the 30th of July as the day of the election of the office of president, the election of members of house of assembly and election of councillors,” Mnangagwa said.

His main opponent will be Nelson Chamisa, 40,  leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which lost its stalwart, Morgan Tsvangirai, to cancer earlier this year.

So far, opposition parties have been campaigning without the previous threats of violence and arrest. More than five million of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people have registered to vote.

A runoff will be held on September 8 if none of the presidential candidates wins an outright majority, according to a proclamation by Mnangagwa.

Known by his nickname The Crocodile, Mnangagwa was a long-standing ally of Mugabe before the latter sacked him.

Mugabe was widely accused of violently suppressing the opposition and rigging elections during his more than three decades in power. Mnangagwa has promised international election observers will be allowed back into Zimbabwe and the vote will be free and fair.

The European Union signed an agreement earlier this week with Zimbabwe in preparation for deploying election observers nationwide.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies