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On January 1, 2019, the New Year will ring in untold numbers of additions to the public domain in the U.S., including hundreds and maybe thousands of works with at least a small public reputation. This, of course, is due to the expiration of the terms of their copyrights, some of which have been extended multiple times since the 1960s. 

This is a good thing from many perspectives, including that of authors, publishers, museum curators, teachers, old-book readers and music and film buffs. It possibly may be a slightly bad thing for a few people — primarily certain estates representing long-dead authors and other creators.

What’s a “term” in the context of copyright?

The duration, or term, of U.S. copyright is set by Congress, and has gradually crept up over time from the original 14 years (plus 14 more if the author was still alive and renewed the copyright) — in Thomas Jefferson’s time — to a whopping “life of the author plus 70 years,” as set by the 1998 “Copyright Term Extension Act” (CTEA, which extended it from life plus 50).

For works first published between 1909 and 1978, the maximum term was finally set by Congress at 95 years (assuming the author complied with a whole lot of rules, alluded to below).  And for post-1978 works, in instances where the author/creator is not a human being (such as a business commissioning a “work made for hire” under rules developed in the case-law) or the work was published under a pseudonym for an unknown person, the term can be as long as 120 years! The copyright in a work, duly registered at the time that registration was required (pre-1978), may never have been renewed, and so its protection may have quietly lapsed some time ago; for many more obscure works, it’s hard to know.

Fun fact: This Copyright Term Extension Act is also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Congress named it in memory of the composer of “I’ve Got You, Babe,” who, as a member of Congress from Southern California, was among the authors of the bill; he unfortunately happened to die while it was being worked on in committee. Prior to 1978, the term of U.S. copyrights was determined by fixed terms of years, subject to publication, registration and notice requirements. Here are more details on that.

How do works pass into the public domain?

Currently, works pass into the public domain according to a complex schedule, combining (sometimes awkwardly) the rules of various laws implemented over the past century.

Bear in mind, however, that many works have passed (or “fallen” or “lapsed,” as the older phrases had it) into the public domain in the U.S. for reasons other than term expiry, even during the 20 years of the CTEA extension. According to the law in effect prior to 1978, if the work was published but never registered in the U.S. Copyright Office, it did not receive protection under copyright law; a work might also not be protected by U.S. copyright law if it lacked proper notice — the © symbol and the proper wording — or if the work’s registration was not renewed after its first 28-year term expired. Or if, as a work of the federal government, it never enjoyed copyright protection in the first place.

Qui Bono? (get it?)

As it turns out, it is not just re-publishers of “classic” texts, such as Dover Thrift Editions, which benefit when new works become available. Textbook and educational publishers frequently re-use old short stories and essays in larger collections, and a work of marginal utility might become more attractive as a potential addition to these collections once the cost of clearing the rights is reduced.

For example, a few years ago a 1922 story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” (whose U.S. copyright had lapsed) was adapted into a feature film. To me, the lesson to be gleaned is that many works of the early 20th century still appear to bear some cultural cachet (or at least continuing value to society) — such that more no-cost access to these works (by their passing from copyright protection to the public domain) should have the overall effect of helping them find new audiences.

Note: Bear in mind, all of these examples are simply illustrative — without a full and careful copyright search, it is difficult to be certain of the copyright status of almost any work. On that, more below.

New works coming into the U.S. public domain also will have the effect of giving researchers new texts to run Text and Data Mining (TDM) algorithms across. It also may add to the richness of film and cultural studies.

Mark Twain proves this isn’t so easy

Unfortunately, determining when a work has in fact “fallen” into the public domain due to the term of its copyright having expired is not always as simple as one might hope.

For example, one might think that everything ever laid down by the pen of Mark Twain (S.L. Clemens, d. 1910) would be in the public domain by now. But, since he left a treasure trove of unpublished works, their copyright protection has extended for many years after his death, because, under pre-1978 law, those works’ copyright protection would not start until the works were published. The distinction between published and unpublished works has been discarded under post-1978 law, but won’t be fully effective for another 30 years. So, some items in the microfilm edition of Twain’s letters and manuscripts (their first publication) are still considered to be under copyright. He’s also enjoyed considerable success recently with the full and final publication of his autobiography.

Twain, a student of intellectual property, steadfastly argued for a perpetual copyright, but he came to realize that this was not permitted under the copyright clause of the U.S. Constitution, which refers to “securing [protection] for limited times.” But, in an age when copyright only protected works for which registrations had been obtained, he did point out that most books wouldn’t be affected by a longer term at all — for the vast bulk of them had no commercial life remaining to them a very few years after their initial publication:

One author per year produces a book which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that’s all. This nation can’t produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is demonstrably impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to take the bread out of the mouths of the children of that one author per year.

I made an estimate some years ago, when I appeared before a committee of the House of Lords, that we had published in this country since the Declaration of Independence 220,000 books. They have all gone. They had all perished before they were ten years old. It is only one book in 1000 that can outlive the forty-two-year limit. Therefore, why put a limit at all? You might as well limit the family to twenty-two children.

– S.L. Clemens, in testimony to Congress, concerning proposed copyright legislation (1906)

“Forever minus a day,” another idea which has been occasionally bruited about (particularly by Congressman Bono and his widow, who was later elected seven times in her own right to Congress), would not constitute much of an effective limit, and so would, I believe, violate the Constitutional limitation; 95 years (an estimated average of the “Life plus 70” term) seems closer to a natural lifespan for a copyright — to me at least. If you and your heirs somehow can’t get the commercial value out of your work before nearly a century is out, I think there’s a takeaway lesson there.

On the other hand…

… some works do have cultural lifespans exceeding the term of copyright. The estates of certain literary, film and musical creators may stand to lose when the copyright in some of the works in their respective repertories lose copyright protection due to the lapse of their terms. For some examples of works entering the public domain on January 1, 2019, that may still have financial value to the author/creator’s heirs: Hemingway’s “Three Stories and 10 Poems” was first published in 1923; it was also the year of release for “Safety Last!” a silent film from Hal Roach Studios, starring Harold Lloyd, which many people remember. The same year saw the first publication (of the sheet music) for “Who’s Sorry Now?” which was a hit recording for Connie Francis in 1958.

But, on balance, “Nothing gold can stay,” as Robert Frost observed in a poem slated — I’m pretty sure — to enter the public domain on January 1st.* The reading, listening, and viewing public should expect to be the main beneficiary of these works entering the public domain. Indeed, 95 years is a good run for the commercial exploitation of a work. Now it’s everybody else’s turn to benefit.

*If it hasn’t already. Copyright searches, on the detail level, can be quite difficult and time-consuming. See: https://www.copyright.gov/rrc/. For any proposed commercial republication, it is certainly the course of wisdom to consult with an attorney and have a full copyright search done.

As anyone from the Gizmondo to the Virtual Boy can tell you, it’s tough to launch a console. Of course, it’s helps when your device apparently comes pre-loaded with thousands of games from big name companies like Nintendo, Sony, Square and Bandai.

It was clear the moment they were launched that Soulja Boy’s SouljaGame console and handhelds were too good to be true, in spite of his insistence that he’d struck deals with game publishers. Now, around three weeks after launch, both have been pulled from his online store (which also stocks a…familiar looking wearable and headphones).

What caused the systems to be pulled from his site isn’t clear, though the rapper appears to have acknowledged as much in a tweet, stating, “I had to boss up, I didn’t have a choice.” Of course, given Nintendo’s history, it seems unlikely that a deal was struck to license titles to what appears to amount to a rebranded emulator.

As Variety notes, titles like Tekken and Tomb Raider were also features in ads for the systems, which is practically crying out for publishers to intervene. Meantime, he’s promised “big plans” soon, including his already stated intention to launch an eSports team at some point next year. For now, however, the rapper appears to be doing just fine, thank you very much:

Around this time every year, my inbox fills with the same repetitive junk.

“Would you consider putting [any random company] in your gift guide?”, “are you going to CES and if so can I pitch you [a gadget that literally won’t be around this time next year]?”, and, “do you want to cover [a company you’ve never hard of’s] predictions for next year?”

To which I always respond: “No,” “absolutely not” and “predictions are not news.”

The “predictions” emails piss me off. Most of the companies that offer predictions don’t seem to fully understand the security field outside their particular niche, or worse, have an agenda they’re trying to push. This year was no different. I trawled through my inbox, scanning literally dozens of emails pushing “predictions” for the coming year.

“Artificial intelligence will stop a data breach,” said one email. “The supply chain will face more attacks,” said another. And, my personal favorite, “bad actors will combine multiple attack types to create synergistic super threats.”

Hate to break it to you, but “super threats” are not a thing.

If you thought 2018 was a tough year for tech, 2019 is going to be so much worse. The groundwork we laid this year will roll over into the next, and that’s when things will start to hit hard, from new laws and political (in)decisions to privacy issues and how employees — not companies — will start to call the shots.

Here’s what you need to know for 2019 in security.

Expect more data leaks and exposures — but not just breaches

2018 saw a rising trend in data leaks and exposures — specifically data that’s not protected with even the most basic security, like a password.

We’ve seen a ton of sites and services exposed in the past year — from gym booking sites, anonymous social network Blind, Urban Massage, FedEx, Canadian internet provider Altima, Amazon and fitness app Polar, to name a few.

Exposed databases and user data can be easily found, yet are entirely preventable — often simply by setting a password. Breaches, where a hacker exploits a vulnerability, are more difficult and require some level of skill, making them less common. But human error, a lack of security smarts or just sheer laziness makes exposed data more discoverable, and yet there’s no sign of data exposures dying down any time soon.

California’s privacy rules will come to a head

After a long fight, California passed its consumer privacy law — set to go into effect at the end of 2019.

Think of the law as like GDPR for California, which will mandate that companies disclose how they collect user data and what they do with it. The law will allow authorities to impose fines on companies that don’t comply or which violate the rules. It’s particularly important for consumers, given most of the world’s largest tech companies have their headquarters in the state.

Tech companies opposed the law. After spending collectively billions of dollars to comply with GDPR, many didn’t want to face another hefty bill to comply with more privacy rules. Instead, many companies pushed for a federal law to overrule and upend California’s soon-to-be-enacted rules. With enough lobbying power in Washington, DC, tech companies and telcos want lawmakers to roll out weaker legislation.

With almost exactly a year to go before California’s rules are set to go into effect, expect to see Silicon Valley work together — for once — to get their own way at a federal level.

Brexit will hamper U.K. tech, startup growth

Brexit, the U.K.’s departure from the European Union, is set for March 29 — and all signs point to a “no deal” that will cause serious, if not as of yet untold problems with immigration, trade, and even intelligence sharing and security arrangements with the U.K.’s European partners.

Leaving the EU without any trade or immigration deals in place will hurt startups and the wider tech scene. Attracting good overseas talent will be difficult without knowing what the immigration rules will be. Even practical things like GPS will begin to struggle, as well as data transfers in and out of the U.K. without a deal in place once the U.K. goes over the cliff-edge. It’ll be a nightmare for companies trying to comply with what’s left of the EU data protection and privacy laws.

Certain technology industries will see more trouble than others, like the gaming industry, which contributes £2 billion ($2.5 billion) to the U.K. economy every year. And, startups won’t get off easy either.

Australia’s draconian encryption laws will begin to hurt

Following in the footsteps of the U.K., Australia passed an anti-encryption law that compels companies operating in the country to turn over encrypted data on request from several government departments.

Many U.S. tech companies, including Apple and Cisco, called on the Australian parliament to ditch the proposals for fear that the law could be abused or harm its customers’ privacy. That didn’t stop a bipartisan effort to pass the bill in time for the Christmas break.

Some companies have already said they can’t — and therefore won’t comply. Signal, the encrypted messaging app, said in a blog post that it “can’t include a backdoor in Signal,” despite the mandate from the country’s capitol. Other companies will find themselves facing the same dilemma. It might force companies to think about their presence in the country altogether.

Facebook’s privacy woes will spread to other Silicon Valley giants

Silicon Valley is split largely into two camps: your data for money, or your data doesn’t make money. You have Facebook, Google and to a lesser degree Twitter and Snap in the first bucket — then you have mostly hardware makers, like Apple, chip manufacturers like AMD and Intel and computer makers like HP and Dell in the other.

Facebook had scandal after scandal this year, after years of playing fast and loose with users’ data. Facebook claims it doesn’t sell your data, but it made money from it at every opportunity. And when it wasn’t actually selling access to your data, it was giving it away.

Many have wondered why other data-hungry, ad-focused companies haven’t had their reckoning yet — and many are asking the same questions. Facebook may be one of the biggest consumers of user data going, but it’s not the only one in the game. In making some of the world’s largest social networks and ad platforms, these companies have inadvertently become mass surveillance tools — either for governments with access already, or hackers and nation states that punch their way through the company’s defenses.

Their time will come — and hot on the heels of Facebook’s slew of scandals, expect it to be sooner rather than later.

Employees, not companies, will dictate how the technology they build is used

This year saw a resurgence of tech employees rising up against their employers for — in their eyes — misusing the products, services and technologies they made for uses outside their moral parameters.

Amazon employees complained that the company’s facial “Rekognition” shouldn’t be sold to law enforcement after the technology was found to racially discriminate against African-Americans. Microsoft staff complained that the company had a $19 million contract to serve U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during a time where the agency was separating children from their asylum-seeking parents at the border. And Google employees complained when they found that the technology they helped to build would go on to serve Chinese users that enables state surveillance.

Now it’s employees who are trying to call the shots. So far, they’ve had mixed success. Amazon executives didn’t care; neither did Microsoft’s — but Google buckled. Given it’s the talented folk at the companies that make the products, they believe they have a right to say how their products are used and who gets them.

This isn’t something likely to change in the new year, as the government continues to rely on tech companies for enforcement and surveillance. Whether they will be successful, however, will be something to watch.

One incident away from sparking another Apple v. FBI crypto-war

Two years ago, the Apple v. FBI dispute could have taken a completely different path. The FBI was pushing a legal challenge that would forever undermine encryption protections — making it easier for the government to compel companies into complying with orders to undermine their own software security. This year, we saw the government approach Facebook to force the company to rewrite its Messenger app to allow federal agents to wiretap calls. It was all in secret — and only became public thanks to leaks.

We’re still dangerously close to another “crypto-war” (that’s “crypto” for cryptography) that could result in heavy-handed legislation or a legal precedent.

Nobody wants a mass casualty event. But as with San Bernardino and the apparent threat from MS-13 — whether inflated or not, lawmakers and prosecutors use bodies as a bargaining chip to push for more access to our data under the guise of preventing another national crisis.

Gloves are off for U.S. and China in cyberspace — again

The 2015 pact between the U.S. and China that promised to curb each others’ cyberespionage efforts amid rising tensions and escalating attacks between the two nations was delicate and frail, but it was almost inevitable that it would fall apart someday.

In December, when the Justice Department accused two Chinese spies of conducting state-backed hacking on dozens of U.S. companies and government departments, including the Navy, the gloves were off, and the pact was over. The writing was on the wall for a while. Security firm FireEye said in its look-ahead at 2019 that China’s reorganization of its offensive cyber operations units “will inform the growth and geographic expansion of Chinese cyber espionage activity through 2020 and beyond.”

In other words, expect the U.S. and China to begin sparring in cyberspace again.

Amazon is planning a Whole Foods expansion in the U.S., according to a report by The Wall Street Journal published this weekend. The goal is to put more customers within the range of Amazon’s two-hour Prime Now delivery service, including those in suburban areas outside cities, as well as those in regions where the grocer has yet to establish a presence.

Currently, Amazon’s Prime Now delivery service offers two-hour delivery in over 60 U.S. cities, and thirty minute-plus grocery pickup in nearly 30 cities. Amazon is planning to expand those services to almost all its 475 Whole Foods stores, the report said, citing sources.

The retailer will also continue to use perks for Prime members to acquire and retain customers, much as it does today.

Because of its lack of a brick-and-mortar footprint, many U.S. consumers living in the outskirts of cities or in more rural areas don’t have access to Amazon’s Prime Now two-hour delivery service. However, they do have access to Walmart stores, which today offering their own online grocery shopping service with pickup and delivery options in a number of markets.

Walmart says that 140 million customers shop its stores weekly, and 90 percent of Americans today live within 10 miles of one of its locations. That makes it a significant challenger to Amazon in terms of offering fast delivery and pickup options. It also doesn’t require an annual membership.

Other companies are competing with Amazon on same-day delivery, too, including Instacart and Target’s Shipt. Target is also rolling out a curbside pickup service called Drive Up, and is planning to expand Shipt’s assortment and reach in 2019.

The WSJ report didn’t confirm store locations, but did note Amazon was scouting retail spaces in parts of Idaho, southern Utah and Wyoming. Some of these were slightly larger than average Whole Foods stores, at 45,000 sq ft. – which hints at their ability to operate as a hub for delivery and pickup, in addition to being a traditional grocery store.

I thought the worst thing about Popsugar’s Twinning tool was that it matched me with James Corden.

Turns out, the hundreds of thousands of selfies uploaded to the tool can be downloaded by anyone who knows where to look.

The popular photo matching tool taking the web by storm is fairly simple. “It analyzes a selfie or uploaded photo, compares it to a massive database of celebrity photos to find matches, and finally gives you a ‘twinning percentage’ for your top five look-alikes,” according to Popsugar, which developed the tool. Then, you share those matched photos on Facebook and Twitter so everyone knows that you don’t look at all like one of the many Kardashians.

All of the uploaded photos are stored in a storage bucket hosted on Amazon Web Services. We know because the web address of the bucket is in the code on the Twinning tool’s website. Open that in your web browser, and you’re looking at a real-time stream of uploaded photos.

We verified the findings by uploading a dummy photo of a certain file size at a specific time. Then, we scraped a list of filenames uploaded during that time period from the bucket’s web address, downloaded them, and found our uploaded image by searching for that photo of a certain file size. (We didn’t download any more than necessary to preserve people’s privacy.)

TechCrunch reached out to Popsugar president Lisa Sugar and vice-president of engineering Mike Patnode, but did not hear back.

As data leaks go, this is definitely on the low-end. You might not care that their selfies were exposed and easily downloadable. (Many photos were already leaking out of Google’s search results — even before people shared their selfie matches on Twitter!) It’s not as if the site was leaking your passwords or your Social Security number. Most probably didn’t go in expecting any reasonable level of security or privacy to begin with.

But like any free app, quiz or some viral web tool, it’s worth reminding that you’re still putting your information out there — and you can’t always get it back. Worse, you almost never know how secure your data will be, or how it might end up being used — and abused — in the future.

This is Captain Buzzkill, signing off.

This time last year, the crypto bull market stole the spotlight. In the midst of bitcoin’s wild run, we announced the Matrix FinTech Index in recognition of the top 10 publicly traded U.S. fintechs quietly surpassing $100 billion in total market capitalization. We predicted that in 2018, the fintechs would prove to be the more relevant disruptors and their equity value would continue to outpace the incumbents.

As we look back, this prediction proved to be true. The market cap of the Matrix FinTech Index grew 50 percentage points in 2018, far outpacing the incumbent financial service giants and the S&P 500. Looking ahead to 2019, we predict that the fintechs will continue to steal the show—creating innovative tech-enabled products, providing access to underserved demographics, and putting consumers first.

The FinTech Index continues to outperform in 2018, though volatility has increased

In this 2018 year-end edition of the Matrix FinTech Index[1] , we are excited to provide a refreshed view of last year’s index. As a quick reminder, the index is a market-cap weighted index that tracks the progress of a portfolio of 10 leading public fintech companies. For comparison, we also included another portfolio of 10 large financial services incumbents (companies like JP Morgan and Visa), as well as the S&P 500. In 2018, the total market cap of the top 10 publicly traded U.S. fintechs grew to nearly $170B and the 2-year returns of the fintechs are now at 133%–100 percentage points higher than the 2-year returns for the incumbents.

Definition: Matrix Partners considers “fintechs” to be venture-backed organizations that are (a) technology-first companies that leverage software to compete with traditional financial services institutions (e.g. banks, credit card networks, insurers, etc.) in the delivery of traditional financial services (e.g. lending, payments, investing, etc.) or (b) software tools that better enable traditional finance functions (e.g. accounting, point-of-sales systems, etc.)

Compared to 2017, volatility increased in 2018. While part of this is the broader state of the equity markets in 2018, it’s worth noting a few specific headwinds (e.g. the TIO security breach that impacted PayPal, Amazon launching Amazon Pay) as well as a few general macro concerns like rising interest rates. But looking ahead to 2019, all 10 of the publicly traded fintechs are expected to continue to have double-digit growth. The only incumbents expected to squeak into double-digit territory in 2019 are card issuers like Visa (11%) and Mastercard (13%) –enabled, in part, by the growth of fintech payment companies like Square and PayPal.

2019 Prediction: The Matrix FinTech Index will deliver 200% returns over the three years ending in December of 2019, outperforming the incumbents and S&P 500 by at least 150 percentage points.

Liquidity is starting to trickle in for private fintech companies

While the FinTech Index performed well on the public markets in 2018, we also saw some very promising liquidity events for privately held companies. In 2017, there were only 3 fintech exits in the U.S. over $100M, totaling just over $700M in value. In 2018 that number grew by a factor of 10 to over $7B in value. More than half of that value came from the GreenSky IPO, but there were also a number of significant M&A events. We expect M&A activity to increase as financial services incumbents acquire fintech companies in an effort to stay competitive. And we continue to believe that the fintech sector will prove to be one of the most fruitful sectors for venture returns in the 15 years following the 2008 financial crisis.

2019 Prediction: Total aggregate value for fintech liquidity events will exceed $10B in one year for the first time ever.

The fintech unicorn pipeline is primed for some big outcomes

What’s even more exciting than 2018’s liquidity is the backlog of privately held fintechs, led by Stripe, that are valued at over $1B. There are now 20 fintech unicorns. In fact, there are more fintech unicorns than any other industry vertical in the Unicorn Club. More than 50% of these raised big growth rounds in 2018 and five of them (Circle, Plaid, Brex, Root and LendingHome) made their debut on the U.S. fintech unicorn list for the first time. The expansion of this list shows that there is no shortage of high-potential areas to disrupt in financial services.

2019 Prediction: Total aggregate value for fintech unicorns will cross $90B and the total number of fintech unicorns will begin to close in on 30.

The next wave of value creation from younger fintechs will be even bigger than the first

Despite these successes on the public markets, in liquidity events and among the unicorn ranks, we are still in the very early innings of the fintech revolution. 2019 will be even more impressive than 2018 as there are an additional 40 U.S. fintechs that have raised more than $100M in equity funding and are on the brink of entering the unicorn club. As many of these companies make that transition, they will sprout another wave of more interesting fintech companies as early employees go on to start their own companies in a virtuous wave of value creation.

We expect these newcomers, and others aspiring to follow in their footsteps, will threaten to end the rule of the financial establishment. They will continue to offer better financial products to consumers, empower more efficient payment channels, and create a more open financial system. At the same time, the incumbents will continue to struggle with innovation, hamstrung by their scale, regulatory burdens, and decades of accumulated technical debt.

Make no mistake. What new fintech companies are attempting is very ambitious and incredibly difficult to achieve. The existing ecosystem of incumbent providers dates back 150 years and represents some of the largest global financial institutions. That said, digital transformation is afoot and the financial service industry will not be spared.

While the thought of a machine that can squirt out endless ropes of molten glass is a bit frightening, the folks at MIT have just about perfected the process. In a paper published in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, researchers Chikara Inamura, Michael Stern, Daniel Lizardo, Peter Houk, and Neri Oxman describe a system for 3D printing glass that offers far more control over the hot material and the final product.

Their system, called G3DP2, “is a new AM platform for molten glass that combines digitally integrated three-zone thermal control system with four-axis motion control system, introducing industrial-scale production capabilities with enhanced production rate and reliability while ensuring product accuracy and repeatability, all previously unattainable for glass.”

The system uses a closed, heated box that holds the melted glass and another thermally controlled box where it prints the object. A moveable plate drops the object lower and lower as it is being printed and the print head moves above it. The system is interesting because it actually produces clear glass structures that can be used for decoration or building. The researchers take special care to control the glass extrusion system to ensure that it cools down and crystallizes without injecting impurities or structural problems.

“In the future, combining the advantages of this AM technology with the multitude of unique material properties of glass such as transparency, strength, and chemical stability, we may start to see new archetypes of multifunctional building blocks,” wrote the creators.

One of the tallest buildings in the world, Taipei 101’s New Year’s Eve fireworks have become an iconic celebration since the first show at the end of 2004. But despite being a major tourism draw, the fireworks haven’t been immune from criticism.

Over the past couple of years, as poor air quality becomes an increasingly serious issue throughout the country, the show has been targeted by Taiwanese environmental groups. The major of Taipei City, Ko Wen-je, said at the beginning of this year that the fireworks show should continue and other, more permanent measures against air pollution should be taken. “There are 365 days in a year,” he told reporters. “But the firework display was only 300 seconds, so we need a long-term plan to solve this problem.”

As one of the tallest LEED-certified buildings, however, Taipei 101 often serves as a case study for how landmark skyscrapers can reduce their carbon footprint, and it has been taking steps to reduce pollution from the show while keeping it a spectacle. A couple weeks ago, a group of bloggers and reporters was invited to take a look at this year’s preparations. (All photos in this story, with the exception of the one at the bottom featuring last year’s show, are by Garret Clarke.)

A technician with some of the fireworks that will be part of Taipei 101’s show.

16,000 fireworks will be used in this year’s show and preparations are usually finished by Dec. 28.

Over the past couple of years, the organizers of Taipei 101’s fireworks show have taken several measures to reduce pollution. Starting with last year’s show, the number of fireworks was reduced from 30,000 to 16,000. To add oomph to the reduced pyrotechnics, a 55-story-tall mesh screen made up of 140,000 LEDs, called a T-Pad, was installed by Taipei 101 fireworks contractor Giant Show on the north side of the skyscraper. The LED screen overlooks the plaza outside of Taipei City Hall where a New Year’s Eve concert is held every year and showcases animations that coordinate with the music and fireworks.

The LED screen is used during the rest of the year for promotions, advertisements and holiday messages

Andy Yang, head of corporate branding and communications for the Taipei Financial Center Corp., Taipei 101’s owner, told TechCrunch that this year’s show cost a total of about NTD $60 million (about USD $1.96 million). It will also include 16,000 fireworks, installed from the 34th to 91st floors of Taipei 101, and animations on the T-Pad. The team that plans the show includes 10 to 15 designers and about 50 pyrotechnicians who install the fireworks on the exterior of the building. Preparations are typically completed by Dec. 28.

Andy Yang stands in front of the scaffolding that leads up to Taipei 101’s 55-story-tall LED mesh screen

Yang says Taipei 101 has been decreasing the number of fireworks used year by year. The LED screen is currently only on one side of Taipei 101, but Taipei 101’s management is exploring the possibility of extending it to other sides of the building.

Taipei 101’s fireworks show at the end of 2017, with the LED screen in view. (kecl/Getty Images)

Taipei 101 also instates an “all lights off” policy, turning off all exterior lights before and after the show in order to reduce carbon emissions. The LED screen not only enables Taipei 101 to reduce the number of fireworks used, but also enables the integration of pyrotechnics, animations, music, and lights into one show, “which brings more design and content opportunities and possibilities for Taipei 101 and Taiwan,” he says.

If you’ve gone down the rabbit hole with Netflix’s latest Black Mirror release, there’s (at least) one more easter egg out there. As some intrepid Reddit users discovered, you can actually visit two different versions of fictional software company Tuckersoft’s website and… spoilers ahead.

On the regular Tuckersoft site, discovered through a QR code embedded in the show itself, Tuckersoft advertises its game lineup including Bandersnatch, a “revolutionary game from Stefan Butler.” In this timeline, Tuckersoft released both Nohzdyve and Bandersnatch and Stefan eventually eclipsed his gaming idol Colin’s own fame, driving the company forward. As the site notes:

“While Colin Ritman was Tuckersoft’s leading man, it was Stefan Butler’s 1984 release, Bandersnatch, that catapulted the company to new heights. The innovative narrative and gameplay transformed interactive entertainment forever.”

If you visit the Tuckersoft site but strip out the www., the company never released Colin’s game due to a tragic incident. If you’ve seen the episode, you can probably guess what that was. This version of the site includes the following text:

“A bleak turn of events would lead to the abrupt cancellation of Colin Ritman’s highly-anticipated game, Nohzdyve, and the end of Stefan Butler’s promising career.

“Metl Hedd remains a classic, but the world will have to wonder what Nohzdyve was like. Rumour has it, an early version of the game is somewhere out there, waiting to be played for the first time.”

Black Mirror fans will note that the fictionalized site for Colin’s other major title, Metl Hedd, depicts the BigDog-like robots that terrorized humans in season four’s particularly harrowing episode “Metalhead.” Tuckersoft’s other games contain plenty of references to Black Mirror episodes too.

In the timeline in which Colin was able to finish Nohzdyve, the game’s sub-page has a download link for a file called nohzdyve.tap and the instructions to “Play Nohzdyve on your ZX Spectrum emulator.” Apparently, the file works and if you run Windows and you’re willing to install an emulator (like Speccy) for the obscure British 8-bit console, you can actually play Colin’s rather prescient release. We’re told it might work on a Commodore 64 emulator too, but haven’t tested that out (yet).

So far it doesn’t look like Bandersnatch is playable anywhere, but given that the episode itself is a game and the game itself results in certain horror, that’s probably for the best.

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely not the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf.

It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the third annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement!

(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017)

THE FEET AND LEGS AND TORSO OF CLAY AWARD FOR SUDDEN REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been pilloried (though also, and to my mind more accurately, tentatively praised) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids.

THE BUT ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE ALL THOSE SHINY NEW ELECTRIC CARS AWARD FOR ATTEMPTED DOOMSAYING

Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to 1,000 per day of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees.

THE YES BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS THE RUSSIANS KNOW IT’S DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR BAD OPSEC

To Donald Trump, who apparently continues to use an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the President of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “seldom used government cell phone” … from the iOS Twitter app.

THE YOU MUST ADMIT I WAS AT LEAST RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT NOW AWARD FOR BUBBLY BITCOIN PREDICTIONS

It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to John McAfee, who I suspect of actually angling for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have long-term importance, I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … in the second half of November. There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion.

THE SURE BUT IT’S A MORE CONNECTED KIND OF MISERY, EXPLOITATION, AND DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR DESTROYING THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT

Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, amplified genocide, provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably dozens of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies.”

THE PICK A HORSE ANY HORSE BUT LOOK JUST ONE HORSE AWARD FOR OXYMORONISM IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful and that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are already exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around.

(Note that there are at least two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds)

THE COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE SPECTACULARLY OUT-OF-TOUCH COVEN OF CLUELESS OLD WHITE MEN AWARD FOR REMINDING US THAT SOMETIMES THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in, and in-touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”?

THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN DISUSES FOR THINGS AWARD FOR BOOTLEG URBAN RENEWAL

To Lime, Bird, and the other scooter companies whose products have spent the year being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is built on the carcasses of sailing ships from the 49er gold rush.

THE OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ TRONC TRONC TRONC AWARD FOR FINALLY GETTING THAT THE JOKE WAS ON THEM

To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — finally! — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings.

THE SOMETIMES NOTHING IS A REAL COOL HAND AWARD FOR DOING NOTHING BECAUSE NOTHING WAS NECESSARY

To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.”

THE COME ON NOW DON’T BE EVIL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AWARD FOR REDEFINING GOOGLEY

To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of pervasive sexual harassment by a massive employee walkout in the same year its plans for a new censorship-friendly China search engine leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc.

THE CENTRAL CASTING MAD SCIENTIST AWARD FOR BRINGING US THE DYSTOPIA WE DESERVE

To He Jiankui, the self-funded doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a well-considered benefit/risk ratio, the pre-existence of well-established less-dangerous ways to achieve the allegedly desired result, or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018zeitgeist, would it?

THE WHAT ARE THE NEW RUULES AWARD FOR MAKING NICOTINE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS AGAIN

To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage!

THE LISTEN UP YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER I WAS THE CEO OF A CYBERSECURITY FIRM AND THE PRESIDENT’S CYBERSECURITY ADVISOR I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW AWARD FOR NOT ACTUALLY KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW TO CYBER THE CYBER. CYBER!

To Rudy Giuliani, who really was the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and really was the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious accusations that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the Internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber!

THE LOOK WE’RE ONLY A $30B COMPANY HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THESE LITTLE DETAILS AWARD FOR FORCING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS NEARBY

To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those for free and automatically these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which …

THE WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED THAT SUCH A THING WOULD HAPPEN OR IF IT DID THAT WE WOULD RESPOND TO IT IN ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS AWARD FOR A REPERTOIRE OF PANICKED FLAILING INEPTITUDE WORTHY OF ARTHUR DENT

To the authorities at Gatwick university, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at all? And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons.

Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.

¹Bobbleheads shall only be distributed if and when available and convenient. The eventual existence of said bobbleheads is not guaranteed or indeed even particularly likely. Not valid on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we have reservations.

Chinese internet giant Tencent has been excluded from the first batch of video game license approvals issued by the state-run government since March.

China regulators approved Saturday the released of 80 online video games after a months-long freeze, Reuters first reported. None of the approved titles listed on the approval list were from Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest gaming company.

Tencent is best known as a the company behind WeChat, a popular messaging platform in China. But much of its revenue comes from gaming. Even with a recent decline in gaming revenue, the company has a thriving business that is majority owner of several companies including Activision, Grinding Gears Games, Riot and Supercell. In 2012, the company took a 40 percent stake in Epic Games, maker of Fortnite. Tencent also has alliances or publishing deals with other video gaming companies such as Square Enix, makers of Tomb Raider. 

The ban on new video game titles in China has affected Tencent’s bottom line. The company reported revenue from gaming fell 4 percent in the third quarter due to the prolonged freeze on  licenses. At the time, Tencent claimed it had 15 games with monetization approval in its pipeline.

China, the world’s largest gaming market, tightened restrictions in 2018 to combat myopia and addiction. Tencent placed its own restrictions on gaming in what appeared to be an attempt to assuage regulators. The company has expanded its age verification system, an effort aimed at curbing use of young players, and placed limits on daily play.

Citi Research has joined a growing list of analysts to lower first-quarter production estimates for Apple’s iPhones amid weakening demand for the smartphones.

Citi Research analyst William Yang cut the overall iPhone shipment forecast by 5 million to 45 million for the quarter, reported Reuters. That’s a sting that falls in line with others such as influential TF International Securities Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who delivered a less than stellar iPhone forecast earlier this month.

It’s Yang’s outlook for the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max that is particularly gloomy. In a research note to clients, Yang slashed the shipment forecast for the iPhone XS Max by 48 percent for the first quarter of 2019.

The cut in Citi’s forecasts is driven by the firm’s view that ” 2018 iPhone is entering a destocking phase, which does not bode well for the supply chain,” Yang wrote.

Two weeks ago, Kuo predicted that 2019 iPhone shipments will likely between 5 to 10 percent lower than 2018. He also lowered first quarter shipment forecasts by 20 percent.

FlixBus, the low-cost tech-forward bus service out of Europe that launched in U.S. this year, has added a VR experience to some long-distance routes to and from Las Vegas.

For now, the FlixBus VR feature, which includes about 50 virtual reality games and travel experiences, is limited to routes from Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. And it will run for three months.

Travelers who reserve a panoramic seat on these routes will get the VR experience for free. Once on board, passengers will receive VR headset loaded with content.

The Pico Goblin 2 headsets are from Pico Interactive. Inflight VR provides the content and software updates of the VR platform. Inflight VR has experience with offering a platform to people who are traveling. The company already provides the platform for airlines and airport lounges.

If the VR feature is received well — meaning people use it, enjoy it, and don’t have ill effects like vertigo — it could stick around longer. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that the VR experience was tested on bus routes in Spain and France and received positive feedback from customers. Flixbus also picked routes that tend to be straight and without a lot of winding roads to reduce the risk of a bad experience with the VR feature.

This VR experiment matches the company’s tech-forward and youthful approach to bus travel.

FlixBus competes with traditional bus company Greyhound with fares between U.S. cities as low as $4.99. However, it has a different business model that is more comparable to ride-hailing company Uber. FlixBus, which now operates in 28 countries, manages the ticketing, customer service, network planning, marketing and sale of its product. The driving is left to local partners, which get to keep a percentage of the ticket receipts.

These local bus partners manage the daily operations of the brightly painted FlixBuses, which are outfitted with free Wi-Fi, power outlets at every seat and complimentary onboard entertainment portal. The company launched in the U.S. in May, starting with routes across California, Arizona and Nevada.

Things are tough all over — but especially in the digital media business of 2018.

Probably the most high-profile flameout this year was at Mic, which laid off most of its staff ahead of an acquisition by Bustle. Mic had raised nearly $60 million in funding, with major media organizations like Time Warner and Bertelsmann writing checks for the company’s vision of delivering news to a millennial audience.

But Mic’s issues were just the capstone to a long year of shutdowns and layoffs. Among the headlines:

• Vice instituted a hiring freeze with the goal of shrinking headcount by up to 15 percent.
• Blaming Facebook algorithm changes, LittleThings looked like it was going to shut down before getting acquired by RockYou, whose digital publishing strategy seems to be facing some challenges of its own.
• Refinery29 laid off around 10 percent of its staff and said it expects to miss its revenue projections for the year by 5 percent.
• BuzzFeed shuttered its in-house podcast team (though this reportedly only involved laying off a “handful” of employees).

• Vox Media laid off around 50 people. It also announced plans to fold its tech news site Recode into its general news publication Vox.com.
• Gizmodo Media Group cut its staff with a round of buyouts.
• Good Media Group, which owns Upworthy and Good Magazine, laid off 31 employees.
• The Outline laid off all its staff writers.
• Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter shut down.
• Rookie shut down.
• Defy Media shut down.

It may not be entirely fair to group these stories together — some companies likely failed because of specific management or business issues, while others fell victim to broader shifts and still others may bounce back after figuring things out. But collectively, they paint the picture of an intensely challenging time.

Peter Csathy, an industry veteran and occasional TechCrunch columnist, has just published a book, “Fearless Media,” about the changes in the media landscape.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Csathy argued that it’s become a best-of-times, worst-of-times world. The worst-of-times side seems obvious — the companies that are struggling due to the “devastation of certain business models,” particularly reliance on big platforms like Facebook, and on an online ad business that’s currently “under tremendous pressure.”

At the same time, he said, “The best of times are the companies like Netflix, the Amazons, the Apples — some of these major new tech-driven media companies.”

Of course, Amazon and Apple make most of their money outside the media business, leaving Netflix as the industry’s big success story. But even there, Csathy predicted that in 2019, “Netflix will be challenged like never before” as it tries to compete with a vast array of new streaming services, many of them created by the same companies that have been selling content to Netflix.

A remote control is seen being held in front of a television running the Netflix application on October 25, 2017. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“Ultimately, the question becomes whether Netflix can prove long-term that it is more than a ‘House of Cards,’” he added via email.

And what about companies that aren’t already big, dominant players — the entrepreneurs who want to build the next Netflix or the next BuzzFeed? It won’t be easy, particularly when it comes to convincing venture capitalists to come on-board. Still, there were some digital media startups that successfully raised funding in 2018, like podcast network Wondery and theSkimm, maker of female-focused newsletters.

And New York-based startup studio Betaworks recently announced an early-stage program focused on “synthetic media,” which Partner Matt Hartman explained is an area taking advantage of advances in graphics and artificial intelligence. This could include companies fighting against misleading, manufactured news stories and videos (“The need for deep fake detection is growing”), but also the ones trying to create new kinds of content, like “virtual” characters such as Instagram celebrity Lil Miquela.

More broadly, Hartman suggested that business models in the media world are changing, particularly as publishers experiment with paywalls and also explore bundling their products together.

Lil Miquela

“I think that next year, we’re going to see a lot of experiments — skinny bundles, thick bundles, companies you wouldn’t expect to come together saying, ‘These things work together,'” he said.

And even if many of these experiments fail, Hartman suggested that they’re pushing things in the right direction: “The last 10 years have been about building companies that have turned out to be harvesting our attention. I think what we’re really excited about is companies that treat their users more humanely. How do we align the incentives for the companies that are entertaining us and educating us and informing us, but also being respectful of our time and our attention?”

Csathy made a similar point, saying, “These new companies that are ad-driven have no choice but to reinvent their business models. [Otherwise] they’ll be lost in the shuffle, because the monetization just isn’t there.”

Does that mean that as a reader and a viewer, you’re going to keep hitting paywalls everywhere? It will probably become increasingly common (New York magazine, for one, just introduced a paywall), but Parse.ly CEO Sachin Kamdar suggested that subscriptions won’t solve things on their own.

“The best publishers are probably going to have five or six revenue streams,” Kamdar said. “It’s not just going to be one.”

As the CEO of an analytics company that sells its products to publishers (as well as marketers), Kamdar has a vested interest in the continued health of the media business.He worried that in the industry’s “echo chamber,” publishers may simply follow the latest trend, but he warned, “Just because everybody else goes that direction doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.

The key, he suggested, is “figuring out the existential thing — who you are as a publisher.” So he’s hoping they move on from “a very short-term view” of chasing the latest platforms and sources of traffic: “Now, I think, people are finally coming to the conclusion that sustainability needs to be a priority.”

And despite the current business climate, Kamdar said there’s a straightforward reason for optimism.

“More time is being spent reading things and watching things,” he said. “You take the long-term picture, there’s a big opportunity to figure out what is happening with that, where they’re going, how you can capture those audiences.”

2018 has been a rough year for China’s bike-sharing giants. Alibaba-backed Ofo pulled out of dozens of international cities as it fought with a severe cash crunch. Tencent-backed Mobike puts a brake on expansion after it was sold to neighborhood services provider Meituan Dianping. But one newcomer is pedaling against the wind.

Hellobike, currently the country’s third-largest bike-sharing app according to Analysys data, announced this week that it raised “billions of yuan” ($1 = 6.88 yuan) in a new round. The company declined to reveal details on the funding amount and use of the proceeds when inquired by TechCrunch.

Leading the round were Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of Alibaba and maker behind digital wallet Alipay, and Primavera Capital, a Chinese investment firm that’s backed other mobility startups including electric automaker Xpeng and car trading platform Souche. The fledgling startup also got SoftBank interested in shelling out an investment, The Information reported in November. The fresh capital arrived about a year after it secured $350 million from investors including Ant Financial.

As China’s bicycle giants burn through billions of dollars to tout subsidized rides, they’ve gotten caught up in financial troubles. Ten months after Ofo raised $866 million, the startup is reportedly mulling bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Mobike is downsizing its fleet to “avoid an oversupply,” a Meituan executive recently said.

It’s interesting to note that while both Ofo and Hellobike fall under the Alibaba camp, they began with different geographic targets. By May, only 5 percent of Hellobike’s users were in China’s Tier 1 cities, while that ratio was over 30 percent for both Mobike and Ofo, a report by Trustdata shows.

This small-town strategy gives Hellobike an edge. As the bike-sharing markets in China’s major cities become crowded, operators began turning to lower-tier cities in 2017, a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology points out.

The new contender is still dwarfed by its larger competitors in terms of user number. Ofo and Mobike command 43 million and 38 million unique monthly mobile installs, respectively, while Hellobike stands at 8 million, accroding to iResearch.

Hellobike’s ambition doesn’t stop at two-wheelers. In September, it rebranded its Chinese name to HelloTransTech to signify an extension into other transportation means. Aside from bikes, the startup also offers shared electric bikes, ride-hailing and carpooling, a category that became much contested following high-profile passenger murders on Didi Chuxing.

In May and August, two female customers were killed separately when they used the Hitch service on Didi, China’s biggest ride-hailing platform that took over Uber’s China business. The incidents sparked a huge public and regulatory backlash, forcing Didi to suspend its carpooling service up to this day. But this week, its newly minted rival Hellobike decides to forge ahead with a campaign to recruit carpooling drivers. Time will tell whether the latecomer can grapple with heightened security measures and fading customer confidence in riding with strangers.