Technology

Twitter today updated its Developer Policy to clarify rules around data usage, including in academic research, as well as its position on bots, among other things. The policy has also been entirely rewritten in an effort to simplify the language used and make it more conversational, Twitter says. The new policy has been shortened from eight sections to four, and the accompanying Twitter Developer Agreement has been updated to align with the Policy changes, as well.

One of the more notable updates to the new policy is a change to the rules to better support non-commercial research.

Twitter data is used to study topics like spam, abuse and other areas related to conversation health, the company noted, and it wants these efforts to continue. The revised policy now allows the use of the Twitter API for academic research purposes. In addition, Twitter is simplifying its rules around the redistribution of Twitter data to aid researchers. Now, researchers will be able to share an unlimited number of Tweet IDs and/or User IDs, if they&re doing so on behalf of an academic institution and for the sole purpose of non-commercial research, such as peer review, says Twitter.

The company is also revising rules to clarify how developers are to proceed when the use cases for Twitter data change. In the new policy, developers are informed that they must notify the company of any &substantive& modification to their use case and receive approval before using Twitter content for that purpose. Not doing so will result in suspension and termination of their API and data access, Twitter warns.

The policy additionally outlines when and where &off-Twitter matching& is permitted, meaning when a Twitter account is being associated with a profile built using other data. Either the developer will need to obtain opt-in consent from the user in question, or they can only proceed if the information was provided by the person or is based on publicly available data.

The above changes are focused on ensuring Twitter data is accessible when being used for something of merit, like academic research, and that itprotected from more questionable use cases.

Finally, the revamped policy clarifies that not all bots are bad. Some even enhance the Twitter experience, the company says, or provide useful information. As examples of good bots, Twitter pointed to the fun account@everycolorbot and informative @earthquakesSF.

Twitter identifies a bot as any account where behaviors like &creating, publishing, and interacting with Tweets or Direct Messages are automated in some way through our API.&

Going forward, developers must specify if they&re operating a bot account, what the account is, and who is behind it. This way, explains Twitter, &iteasier for everyone on Twitter to know whata bot & and whatnot.&

Of course, those operating bots for more nefarious purposes — like spreading propaganda or disinformation — will likely just ignore this policy and hope not to be found out. This particular change follows the recent finding that a quarter of all tweets about climate change were coming from bots posting messages of climate change denialism. In addition, it was recently discovered that Trump supporters and QAnon conspiracists were using an app called Power10 to turn their Twitter accounts into bots.

Twitter says since it introduced a new developer review process in July 2018, it has reviewed over a million developer applications and approved 75%. It also suspended more than 144,000 apps from bad actors in the last six months and revamped its developer application to be easier to use. Itnow working on the next generation of the Twitter API and is continuing to explore new products, including through its testing program, Twitter Developer Labs.

Criteo faces a privacy investigation, an e-discovery startup raises $62 million and hackers hack other hackers. Hereyour Daily Crunch for March 10, 2020.

1. Adtech giant Criteo is being investigated by Francedata watchdog

Criteo is under investigation by the French data protection watchdog, the CNIL, following a complaint filed by privacy rights campaign group Privacy International.

Back in November 2018, a few months after GDPR (Europeupdated data protection framework) came into force, Privacy International filed complaints against a number of companies operating in the space — including Criteo. A subsequent investigation by the rights group found adtech trackers on mental health websites sharing sensitive user data for ad targeting purposes.

2. Everlaw announces $62M Series C to continue modernizing legal discovery

Everlaw is bringing modern data management, visualization and machine learning to e-discovery, the process in which legal entities review large amounts of evidence to build a case. CapitalG (Alphabetgrowth equity investment fund) and Menlo Ventures led the round.

3. Hackers are targeting other hackers by infecting their tools with malware

CybereasonAmit Serper found that the attackers in this years-long campaign are taking existing hacking tools and injecting a powerful remote-access trojan. When the tools are opened, the hackers gain full access to the targetcomputer.

4. Amazon creates $5M relief fund to aid small businesses in Seattle impacted by coronavirus outbreak

The fund will provide cash grants to local small businesses in need during the novel coronavirus outbreak. The money will be directed toward small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or less than $7 million in annual revenue, and with a physical presence within a few blocks of Regrade and South Lake Union office buildings.

5. Stitch Fixsharp decline signals high growth hurdles for tech-enabled startups

Shares of Stitch Fix, a digitally-enabled &styling service,& are off sharply this morning after its earnings failed to excite public market investors. The firm, worth over $29 per share as recently as February, opened today worth just $14.75 per share. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Facebook Stories tests cross-posting to its pet, Instagram

Facebooklatest colonization of Instagram has begun — the social network is testing the option to cross-post Stories to Instagram, instead of just vice-versa.

7. Sequoia is giving away $21M to a payments startup it recently funded as it walks away from deal

Sequoia Capital has, for the first time in its history, parted ways with a newly funded company (Finix) over a purported conflict of interest and, almost more shockingly, handed back its board seat, its information rights, its shares and its full investment.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunchroundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you&d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

&Dear Sophie& is an 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 work at a startup and my company is sponsoring me for an EB-2 NIW green card because they didn&t want to deal with PERM. I have some unique skills and am helping create a new technology that will support Americans and create jobs.

We just got hit with a massive Request for Evidence. I&m supposed to marry my American fiancé next month, but I really wanted to immigrate based on my own accomplishments. What should I do?

Marrying in the Marina

Dear Marrying,

I get it. We can strive so hard to achieve everything based on our merit and accomplishments, but for tech professionals who are used to success, it can be frustrating when we&re forced to depend on our employer or our beloved for our future. The startup ecosystem rewards fierce independence, and it can feel uncomfortable to ask others for support.

Monograph, a startup working on cloud-based software that makes project and cost management easier for architects, announced today that it has raised $1.9 million in seed funding. The round was led by Homebrew Ventures and Parade Ventures, with participation from Designer Fund, Hustle Fund VC and angel investors.

The San Francisco-based startup was founded last year by Robert Yuen, Alex Dixon and Moe Amaya. Each has experience in architecture, design and software development, making them well-positioned to create a management platform tailored for architects.

Monograph was designed to be easy to use, with an emphasis on the onboarding process so firms are encouraged to switch from traditional project management methods, like spreadsheets, to the software. The startup says hundreds of architects, ranging from solo practitioners to firms with more than 60 people, have already signed up. Monograph has been used to help manage more than $125 million in projects, ranging in size from bathroom and kitchen remodeling to building large hotels.

[gallery ids="1956919,1956918,1956917"]

Before Monograph, the three were partners in an agency called Dixon and Moe, working as UI/UX consultants for tech startups and architecture firms.

&Monograph really grew out of the agency as a product we saw solving problems that we saw in our day to day lives as architectural designers, and also in our everyday lives with our friends,& Yuen told TechCrunch. &Thatthe loss in the transparency of information between how much time you are spending on work, how projects are going, who is working on it. There is really no accurate way to manage a project and they are growing in complexity each year.&

Like other tech companies in the architecture space, including PlanGrid, Procore and UpCodes, Monograph is designed to streamline aspects of the design and building process, while making it easier for teams to collaborate.

Monograph is currently designed for use by architects and consultants, and includes tools to assign milestones, manage project timelines and for timesheets, billing and invoicing. Data is then used for cost and progress analytics, like MoneyGantt, a feature for budget forecasting.

Yuen says that no matter a projectsize, each team includes architects, designers and engineers. By the end of the year, the company plans to start releasing new versions of Monograph that can be used by structural, electrical and mechanical engineers, as well as other licensed professionals.

The companyfunding will be used to hire for its software engineering and customer support teams.

In a press statement, Homebrew partner Satya Patel said &Monograph offers transformative organization and project management software that is changing the way architects and designers work so that they can deliver better client service, manage costs and earn more profit. We look forward to seeing the companycontinued growth and innovation in a market that has been waiting for modern solutions.&

Two video startups are making dueling legal claims against the other.

The Wall Street Journal broke the news yesterday that interactive video company Eko is accusing Quibi of infringing on its patented technology.

At around the same time, The Hollywood Reporter noted that Quibi (which is launching its short-form mobile video service next month) has filed a complaint in California federal court claiming that Eko has engaged in &a campaign of threats and harassment.&

At the heart of the dispute is QuibiTurnstyle technology, which allows viewers to seamlessly switch between landscape and portrait-mode viewing.

Both companies seem to agree that Eko CEO Yoni Bloch met with Jeffrey Katzenberg in March 2017 (before Katzenberg had even founded Quibi) about a possible investment in Eko, and that there was at least one follow-up meeting between Quibi and Eko employees in 2019.

Eko claims that it provided Quibi employees — both while they were working at Quibi and before then, when they were previously at Snap — with details and code behind its technology. Then, after Katzenberg and Quibi CEO Meg Whitman showed off Turnstyle at CES this year, Eko sent a letter to Quibi claiming that the feature infringed on its intellectual property. (According to the Journalstory, Ekolawyers have sent a letter to Quibi but have not filed a lawsuit.)

&Our Turnstyle technology was developed internally at Quibi by our talented engineers and we have, in fact, received a patent for it,& Quibi said in a statement. &These claims have absolutely no merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves against them in court.&

Meanwhile, in a statement, Eko described Quibitechnology as &a near-identical copy of its own,& and said the companylegal motion is ¬hing more than a PR stunt&:

It is telling that Quibi filed the motion only after learning the Wall Street Journal was going to publish an article exposing allegations of Quibitheft of Ekotechnology … Eko will take the legal actions necessary to defend its intellectual property and looks forward to demonstrating its patent rights to the court.

You can read Quibifull complaint below.

Quibi complaint by TechCrunch on Scribd

Augmented reality technology did not, it turns out, light the touch paper on a booming new industry. What we got instead were a few cute applications on smartphones and devices like Microsoft HoloLens, which has seen pretty limited success.

Where AR has proved that it may have a future is in industry, allowing workers to look at plans whilst they assemble something, for instance.

A new U.K. startup hopes to nudge that future on further with a radical new technology which, although it resembles the HoloLens, is in fact a highly accurate helmet-mounted screen that enables construction workers to place beams or bricks in exactly the right locations, thus introducing significant savings in time normally lost due to mistakes.

To further boost its efforts, XYZ Reality has closed a £5 million Series A funding round, led by Amadeus Capital Partners and Hoxton Ventures, with participation from Adara Ventures and J Coffey Construction. The company will build out its AR cloud and software platform and build its team to serve the EU market and expand to the U.S. and Asia.

The idea behind it is highly innovative. A dedicated helmet with an attached visor projects a highly accurate hologram — based on laser positioning —in front of the wearerface, allowing them to place objects precisely according to plans projected in front of their eyes.

The company claims its HoloSite headset is the &worldfirst engineering-grade Augmented Reality device,& that allows construction workers to view Building Information Models on-site to a five-millimeter accuracy.

The problem itsolving is an age-old one. In todayconstruction industry, buildings are designed in 3D and then converted into 2D drawings. But tradespeople are asked to interpret those 2D drawings and turn them into 3D buildings within construction &tolerances.& This process creates inefficiencies that mean up to 80% of the construction being &out-of-tolerance.& Itestimated that 7-11% of project costs are wasted this way and, of course, in mega-projects like huge bridges, this amounts to an average of more than $100 million.

Founder, CEO and builder David Mitchell, who has spent his career in the construction industry, says: &Works are currently validated after the fact through laser scanning. But 80% of the time the construction fails to meet acceptable tolerances. With HoloSite, we can prevent errors happening in the first place.&

Mitchell came up with the idea of eliminating 2D designs after the 2008 recession devastated the industry.

I tried out the headset for myself and found that I could, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, from scratch complete a basic assembly of bricks according to the plans projected in front of my eyes.

XYZ says it is possible to build a bathroom in two hours using the headset, versus a day without it, using the technology.

The hope is that as this technology improves, any tradesperson would be able to work on a construction site with less need for training in 2D plans, but still with a high degree of accuracy.

The project is not without risk. Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets for construction, shuttered its HQ last year. Earlier, Osterhout Design Group unloaded its AR glasses patents after acquisition talks with Magic Leap, Facebook and others stalled. Meta, an AR headset startup that raised $73 million from VCs, including Tencent, also sold its assets earlier this year after the company ran out of cash.

But Amadeus is bullish. Nick Kingsbury, partner, Amadeus Capital Partners said: &Construction is a sector thatripe for radical innovation. This technology has the potential to revolutionize how the construction industry sets out and validates its work, reducing costs and the chance of project slippage from mistakes.&