Technology

Pretty much everyone is getting socked by the Covid-19 shutdown. Among the latest to say so in a public way is Away, the trendy, five-year-old, New York-based travel brand that has raised roughly $180 million from investors over the years, including a $100 million round last year that pegged the companyvaluation at $1.4 billion — nearly three times where it was valued a year earlier.

With travel down nearly 100 percent as the coronavirus makes its way across the U.S. and world, the company has seen sales of its product fall off a cliff, say company founders Steph Korey and Jen Rubio in a new Medium post. Specifically, they disclosed today, sales of their luggage, bags, and interior organizers have fallen by more than 90 percent over the past few weeks.

The company, which began as a direct-to-consumer brand, first took steps to reduce its burn rate by shuttering its now ten retail stores, while paying its retail teams &during what we hoped would be short-term closures.&

Unsurprisingly, given that human capital is typically a companybiggest cost center, that strategy didn&t go far enough, so the company is having to furlough &about half& of its team and itlaying off another 10%, it says.

&This was a devastating decision and one we considered only as a last resort,& say Korey and Rubio in their post. &The pride we once had in the creation of so many opportunities for people is now fear, frustration, and concern for a large number of people who didn&t deserve this outcome. Many of these are people we personally hired, and many more are friends.&

The founders are also suspending their own salaries, they add, and they say senior leadership at the company has agreed to reduced salaries.

Away is doing this exactly the right way, by the way. Rubio and Korey say those laid off will receive a minimum of eight weeks of severance and will see their healthcare coverage through the end of June.

The company says it has also waived the vesting cliff on equity and extended the exercise period of stock options so affected employees don&t have to make decisions surrounding their equity while they&re frantically figuring out next steps for themselves.

They also note that owing to government assistance, its furloughed employees — many of whom work in customer support — should continue to receive 100% of their wages and benefits until they can resume work full time.

Away was described by some former employees as having a toxic culture in The Verge late last year, owing in part to CEO Koreymanagement style. Soon after, Korey apologized and stepped aside, but weeks later she announced through the New York Times that, on second thought, she wasn&t going to give up her role at the company, a position she currently shares with Stuart Haselden, who agreed to join the company from Lululemon Athletica when Korey first stepped away.

Whether the two continue to share this role is another question and one that presumably depends on how long the current downturn lasts.

In the meantime, Away is smart to do everything in its power for employees whom it can no longer pay — and to get ahead of employee leaks about the layoffs by posting the news itself to Medium.

Itnot the first company to do so, of course. Last week, as one example, the CEO of the personalized stationery startup Minted, Mariam Naficy, also posted on Medium her letter to employees about layoffs at the company and precisely what former staffers could expect in the way of severance. Iteasy to imagine many others adopting the same playbook as the current state of affairs wears on.

They should. In both cases, the founders came across as savvy and compassionate on the whole. Their handling of a bad situation also stands in stark contrast to how some other startups have handled layoffs — and how they will be remembered for it when all is said and done.

On Friday, April 3, 2020, NASA and SpaceX completed an end-to-end demonstration of the teams& ability to safely evacuate crew members from the Fixed Service Structure during an emergency situation at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX and NASA are in the process of final preparations prior to launching their first crewed spaceflight mission — Demo-2, which is technically still a demonstration mission needed to validate SpaceXCrew Dragon for transporting humans during regular flight. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be on board the historic flight, which will see SpaceXvehicle fly them to the International Space Station for the very first time.

One preparatory step for that launch happened on April 3, with a full run-through of the emergency egress system that will be in place during Demo-2 launch day to ensure that astronauts and ground crew can all quickly and safely get clear of the launchpad in case anything goes wrong. Ithighly unlikely that the system will actually be used, but safety is the name of the game in human spaceflight, and so NASA and SpaceX conducted a full demonstration with crew and support staff at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prove that everything works as intended.

As you can see in the video above, the system includes essentially loading crew from the launch tower into what amounts to a biplane system, with baskets they ride in to reach armored vehicles at ground level. They&re loaded into those, which are technically called Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (explosion-resistant, naturally), and then those take them to a safe distance.

Part of the demonstration exercise included simulating crew injuries among the support staff, with other team members having to locate them and carry them to the baskets for evacuation. Everything seems to have gone to plan, and this means that May window for this groundbreaking SpaceX mission is looking more solid than ever.

Want to let your kids poke around Netflix without them wandering their way beyond the kids section? Got a roommate who keeps inexplicably forgetting to use their profile and is totally screwing up your &Continue Watching& list?

Good news! Netflix is now letting users set a PIN to keep individual profiles locked down.

The new feature comes as part of a wider update this morning focusing on improved parental controls.

Other new features include:

• Filtering titles based on their maturity rating in your country. Useful if you want someone to have access to more than just the kids section while still blocking off anything beyond, say, PG-13.
• Disabling auto-play on a kid profile to make Octonaut marathons a bit more… intentional.
• Blocking specific titles by name. Need a break from Boss Baby? Maybe add it to the list for a while.

Itall pretty basic stuff… but with more people working from home with kids in tow right now, ita good time for all of it to land.

Looking for the new controls? Visit Netflix.com in a browser, make sure you&re toggled into a non-kid profile, tap the dropdown arrow in the upper right, hit &Account&, then look for the &Profile - Parental Controls& section — everything should be nested in there, with individual settings for each profile on your account.

Hereanother edition of &Dear Sophie,& the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

&Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,& says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. &Whether you&re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.&

&Dear Sophie& columns are accessible for Extra Crunch subscribers; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie: I have an H-4 visa and work authorization. I currently have a job thatconsidered nonessential during the coronavirus emergency. If I get laid off, I would need unemployment assistance while I look for another job.

Would getting unemployment benefits hurt my or my spousegreen card petition under the new public charge rule?

— Nonessential in NorCal

Dear Nonessential:

Thanks for your timely question. The short answer is no, getting unemployment benefits alone right now won&t jeopardize your or your spousegreen card. This is because receiving unemployment benefits, getting tested for coronavirus and seeking emergency medical treatment (even if itcovered by Medicaid) are all exempt from consideration as government benefits under the new public charge rule.

Immigration officials have long had the authority to deny individuals a visa or green card if they are likely to be dependent on public benefits. The new public charge rule, which went into effect on February 24, expands the factors immigration officials will consider. An additional form seeking health and financial information must now be submitted with most visa and green card applications. Immigration officials will use that information to determine whether applicants are or are likely to become dependent on government benefits.

If you have received a public benefit in the past, your application won&t necessarily be denied, but given whatat stake, itimportant to consult an experienced immigration attorney.

Individuals who will be subjected to the increased scrutiny of the expanded public charge rule are:

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has been granted a permit to begin driverless testing on Californiapublic roads, paving the way for the company to roll out commercial operations throughout the state.

Nuro, which raised $940 million from SoftBank Vision Fund last year, is allowed to put two of its low-speed electric R2 delivery vehicles on public roads in parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the agency that regulates autonomous vehicle testing in the state.

The driverless permit allows the vehicles to operate at a maximum speed of 25 mph and only in fair weather conditions on streets with a speed limit of no more than 35 mph, the DMV said Tuesday. The permit covers nine cities, including Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Woodside.

&The safety of the motoring public is the DMVtop priority, and we do not give out these permits lightly,& DMV Director Steve Gordon said in statement. &Nuro has met the DMVrequirements to receive this permit to test their driverless delivery vehicles on Californiapublic roads.&

Nuro won&t start its driverless testing right away due to stay-at-home orders issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom because of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic. The company will be actively engaging in logistical planning for the day public roads testing can begin, Nurochief legal and policy officer David Estrada said in a blog post Tuesday. &Our hope is that residents of neighboring cities and counties will see R2 on the road soon,& he said.

A path to commercialization

While 65 companies have an active permit to test autonomous vehicles with a human safety driver, Waymo, and now Nuro, are the only companies allowed to operate driverless vehicles on Californiapublic roads.

Nuro might end up being the first company to actually use it. Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, received the first permit in October 2018. However, the company has never conducted driverless testing on public roads there. Instead, Waymo has focused its efforts on Arizona, where it already operates a robotaxi service called Waymo One and it has a clearer commercial path.

In California, the commercial path is muddled for most AV developers. Under state law, the DMV regulates autonomous vehicle testing. If a company wants to transport passengers — essentially operating a ride-hailing service — it must get an Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The CPUC lets companies use their self-driving vehicles to transport people. However, they can&t charge for rides and the vehicles must have safety drivers behind the wheel.

NuroR2 vehicle isn&t designed for people, only packages. While the company can&t charge a delivery fee, it can generate revenue by working with local retailers to launch a commercial delivery business using the autonomous vehicles.

Nuro will start with free deliveries to select customers in Mountain View and the surrounding area, Estrada said, adding that this will allow a formal delivery service in partnership with local brands and retailers.

The company already has its eyes on a statewide delivery service. Estrada said Nuro will apply for a full commercial deployment permit to bring its services to California residents throughout the state.

&Putting our driverless R2 delivery vehicles on the road will be an important first for our company and the self-driving industry. But it is just a glimmer of what is to come,& Estrada said. &We have always believed in the transformative power of autonomous vehicles, and in the climate of COVID-19 we understand their potential even more deeply.&

NuroR2 unit

Image Credits:

Nuro was founded in June 2016 by Google alums Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu. The company was issued an AV testing permit — with a human safety operator — in 2017. Initially, the company used modified Toyota Prius sedans for testing as well as for pilot grocery deliveries in Arizona and Texas.

The company transitioned in December 2018 to the R1, the first step towards a vehicle designed exclusively for packages.

Itsecond-generation vehicle called the R2 was introduced in February 2020. The R2, which was designed and assembled in the U.S. in partnership with Michigan-based Roush Enterprises, is equipped with lidar, radar and cameras to give the &driver& a 360-degree view of its surroundings. However, it is missing a few features typically required by the U.S. Department of TransportationNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

After three years of working with regulators, Nuro received a driverless exemption from NHTSA for its R2 vehicle. The exemption allows the vehicle to operate even though it doesn&t have side-view mirrors, a windshield and a rear-view camera that shuts off when driving forward.

This exemption is different from the one that GM is currently pursuing for its self-driving unit Cruise. That vehicle, which is not considered a low-speed vehicle, has a much longer list of exemptions.

Today, Facebook quietly released a new app for couples. Called Tuned, the new release is a multimedia messaging app designed to help significant others communicate.

The app is available for download in the U.S. and Canada, app analytics firm Sensor Tower tells us. Tuned was developed and released by FacebookNew Product Experimentation (NPE) team. The division is — as the name suggests — very experimental and thus a bit quicker to pull the plug on projects if they don&t show traction.

The Tuned app arrives during a very interesting time for couples. Couples that live together are spending every waking moment in each otherpresence in the midst of quarantine and could probably never have less of a need for an app like this. For couples that don&t live together, theremore of an appeal, as people are emboldened to build out digital toolsets to stay close with their partners during an unprecedented time.

The app is by all means just a messaging app thatmore focused on pushing updates and stickers to a singular person. Users can also integrate the app with Spotify to share songs, or use dedicated widgets to share how they&re feeling or what they&re up to. The company refers to the appfeed as &scrapbook-style.&

Itnot integrated with the companydating platform, Facebook Dating; in fact, the most interesting quality of the app is the sheer lack of Facebook tie-ins.

For years, Messenger was the testing bed for Facebooksocial curiosities, but Messenger became too important and users weren&t responding positively to constantly seeing nominal changes in an app they frequently used. The issue is Facebook doesn&t have a default experimentation app anymore, and so these NPE team releases kind of force Facebook to get by with less user data and make judgment calls on how fast functionality can develop when starting from a standstill. Itunclear how successfully this strategy is progressing. NPE Teamonly other release thatstill available, a Pinterest competitor named Hobbi, was released two months ago and has only received one review on the App Store — a one-star review.