Month: April 2020

SpaceX has launched another big batch of Starlink satellites, the low Earth orbit spacecraft that will provide connectivity for its globe-spanning high-bandwidth broadband internet network. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites on orbit to 422, though the company plans to de-orbit two of those (the first two prototypes launched) shortly.

Already, SpaceX is the largest private satellite operator in existence – by a wide and growing margin. It’s also managed to keep up the frequent pace of its Starlink launches despite the global COVID-19 crisis, with its last launch taking place March 18. In total, it has flown four such missions since the start of the year, just four months into 2020.

The company has good reason to want to keep up that aggressive pace: Each launch brings it closer to the eventual launch of the Starlink broadband service that the satellites will provide the network backbone for. SpaceX wants that network to be live with coverage available in Canada and the Northern U.S. by sometime later this year, and because of the way its approach works, with small satellites orbiting much closer to Earth than traditional geostationary internet satellites and handing off the connection to one another as they pass the coverage area, they need a whole lot of them to provide stable, reliable, low-latency connections for consumers and businesses.

Starlink aims to expand its service to customers globally next year, which will require even more launches and a much larger constellation. Ultimately, the company has filed documents indicating it could launch between 12,000 and 42,000 small satellites to build out the network to its eventual state, depending on demands and performance.

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk detailed some of the measures that the company is taking to address complaints that its Starlink satellites are interfering with Earth-based observation of the night sky. The satellites produce lights and can present as light streams in astrophotography, and astronomers argue they interfere with stellar observation and research through Earth-based telescopes and observatories.

Today’s launch also included a recovery attempt for the Falcon 9 booster rocket used, which flew before on SpaceX’s Demo-1 Crew Dragon mission, as well as twice more in 2019. The Falcon 9 landed as planned on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, hopefully marking a return to form after a couple of Falcon 9 booster landings went awry earlier this year.

SpaceX will also attempt to recover the fairing halves used to protect the Starlink satellite cargo during the launch, though not by using nets to catch them as they fall back to Earth slowed by parachutes, due to system upgrades. Instead, it’ll be looking to fish them out of the water, and we’ll update this post with those results, when and if SpaceX makes them available. The company is looking to re-use fairings more frequently, and the net capture process makes it easier to refurbish them for additional use. This is another cost-saving measure as SpaceX continues to strive towards full launch vehicle reusability with its Starship spacecraft, now in development.

Source: Tech Crunch

AT&T gave a first look into how the pay TV business is faring amid the coronavirus pandemic…and it’s not great. The company reported today as a part of its Q1 2020 earnings that its traditional pay TV services, including DIRECTV and its newer streaming option AT&T TV, saw a combined net loss of 897,000 subscribers in the quarter. Meanwhile, its over-the-top streaming service, AT&T TV Now, also lost 138,000 subscribers, following a number of price hikes.

The company’s newer pay TV service, AT&T TV, only just became available nationwide in March. But despite its “streaming” nature — it ships with an Android TV-powered box to deliver TV over the internet — consumers may have already caught on to the fact that it’s still just the worst of pay TV wrapped up in a new delivery mechanism.

The streaming service is expensive compared with today’s over-the-top and video-on-demand options. It’s also laden with fees for things like activation, early termination and additional set-top boxes. And its bundle with AT&T Internet offers each service for $39.99/month for the first 12 months, but ties subscribers into two-year contracts where prices climb in the second year.

AT&T’s Q1 TV subscriber numbers indicate how quickly the pay TV market is imploding. And perhaps it will decline even more rapidly now that people no longer want to risk coronavirus exposure by having service techs install equipment in their homes. While AT&T TV’s DIY installation may help in that area, it’s unclear if the new service will ever broadly appeal to consumers in the streaming era.

AT&T ended the quarter with 18.6 million pay TV subscribers, down from 19.5 million in Q4 when it lost 945,000 subscribers.

This all puts much more pressure on WarnerMedia to deliver with its May 27th launch of HBO Max. The new direct-to-consumer streaming service promises all of HBO, plus original content, and a library of movies, classic TV and film, fan favorites and more. But at only $14.99 per month, it won’t be able to replace the lost revenue from high-priced pay TV subscriptions — only offset it.

AT&T also today admitted how the coronavirus outbreak has forced it to rethink its theatrical model.

Just yesterday, WarnerMedia announced the new kids movie “Scoob!” would skip theaters and head straight into homes, where it will be offered at either a $19.99 rental or $24.99 digital purchase. It will later have its “exclusive streaming premiere” on HBO Max.

“We’re rethinking our theatrical model and looking for ways to accelerate efforts that are consistent with the rapid changes in consumer behavior from the pandemic,” said WarnerMedia CEO and AT&T COO John Stankey, as reported by The Wrap.

“When theaters are closed, it’s hard to generate revenue,” he said. “And I don’t expect that’s going to be a snapback. I think that’s going to be something we’re going to have to watch the formation of consumer confidence, not just about going to movies, just in general about being back out in public and understanding what’s occurring there,” Stankey noted.

Overall, AT&T missed on both revenue and earnings in Q1, largely citing impacts from the coronavirus outbreak, which reduced earnings by 5 cents per share ($433 million). Total revenue in the quarter was $42.8 billion, short of Wall Street estimates of $44.2 billion. Adjusted EPS was 84 cents per share, versus an expected 85 cents.

A $600 million decline in revenue was attributed to lost ad sales, specifically those that were expected from now-postponed live sports events like March Madness, as well as lower wireless equipment sales.

AT&T’s WarnerMedia division — which includes HBO and Turner broadcast networks in addition to Warner Bros. theatrical releases — was heavily impacted by the pandemic, as well, reporting $7.4 billion in revenue, down from $8.4 billion a year earlier.

“The COVID pandemic had a 5 cents per share impact on our first quarter. Without it, the quarter was about what we expected — strong wireless numbers that covered the HBO Max investment, and produced stable EBITDA and EBITDA margins,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, in a statement. “We have a strong cash position, a strong balance sheet, and our core businesses are solid and continue to generate good free cash flow — even in today’s environment. In light of the pandemic’s economic impact, we’ve already adjusted our capital allocation plans and suspended all share retirements,” he added.

The company said it will continue investing in 5G and broadband, two of its only bright spots in the quarter, in addition to investments in HBO Max.

AT&T withdrew its financial guidance due to the “lack of visibility related to COVID-19 pandemic and recovery,” it said.

Source: Tech Crunch

Houzz, an online platform for home renovation and design, has laid off 155 employees, roughly 10% of its staff, per an internal memo obtained by TechCrunch. Executive salaries also took a cut.

The company, last valued at $4 billion, confirmed the content of the memo in a statement to TechCrunch.

“Due to the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses in the home renovation and design space, and the resulting impact on our core business of pro subscriptions, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to part ways with 155 employees, which is approximately 10% of our team,” said a spokesperson.

In the internal memo, Houzz’s founders Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen cite COVID-19’s impact on its core business: pro subscriptions. The subscriptions are for home remodeling and design professionals to find work. Due to COVID-19, many of those same professionals are facing project delays or cancellations as states promote social distancing and shelter in place.

Beyond serving as a marketplace for home renovators and customers, the company also sells furniture from third parties. Many consumers might not be thinking about renovating their bathroom or welcoming construction into their home as the pandemic shows up on doorsteps around the world.

While the layoffs are COVID-19 related, this isn’t the first sign of Houzz struggling as a business. Last month, Houzz fired 10 people and scrapped a plan to create furniture in-house. The move would have seen Houzz bring in-house some of the revenue it usually delegates to third-party manufacturers.

“At Houzz, we continually review our strategic investments, such as Private Label, to ensure that they are aligned to the current needs of our business and optimized for our continued growth,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch back in March. “As a result of this process, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue our investment in Private Label at this time.”

The company also had some turbulence last year when it disclosed a data breach compromising 57 million records. A year prior, Houzz fired 10% of its staff to cut costs and restructure ahead of preparing for an IPO. And considering a number of factors, we’re guessing that plan to barrel toward the public markets may have changed.

Houzz will provide those laid off with severance packages based on tenure and will pay for benefits until the end of July. The company also said it will help those laid off find their next gig through resume writing, career coaching and network referrals.

Source: Tech Crunch

Astronauts may make a second home of space, but even they have a first time going up. NASA is hoping to better prepare its crews for the challenges of space by sending them on suborbital flights from the likes of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin — suggesting a potentially huge new market for the nascent private spaceflight industry.

Speaking at the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers conference in March, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explained that the agency was considering private carriers now mainly because previously the possibility simply didn’t exist.

“That’s a capability we as a nation have not had until recently,” he said, in remarks reported by Space.com.

Indeed, it is not entirely clear we have it even now. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have both demonstrated suborbital flights that have skimmed the very verge of space, but test flights and commercial flights to order are very different.

While Virgin is already selling tickets, there’s no date set for the first flight with passengers. That flight will likely be this year, but without a reliable schedule and record of successful missions it’s hard to say that the capability is anything but aspirational at present. That’s the nature of space travel — 99% of the way is still nowhere.

Still, it seems inevitable that Virgin, Blue or another provider will, some time in the next few years, offer suborbital flights with space for payloads and passengers. That’s something NASA seems hot to take them up on.

It’s rather strange, but equally inescapable, that astronauts have to do all their training here on Earth. They can do all the simulators, “vomit comet” flights and pool training they like — but in the end, the only way to experience space is to go there.

Until quite recently that meant getting on top of a hundred-million-dollar rocket and going up to the ISS, or in earlier days to the Moon in an orbiter or lander.

There’s very little one can do to prepare for that, but among those few things is going to space more cheaply and temporarily. That’s what suborbital flights make possible.

The rocket-powered ascent out of the atmosphere and resulting minutes of weightlessness are a suitable venue for training, testing and other operations that might otherwise have had to take place in orbit. And that’s what NASA is hoping will take place — though no contracts have been signed just yet.

Although the first few suborbital flights from these providers were practically guaranteed to sell out, space tourism isn’t a proven industry and events like the present pandemic and inevitable economic downturn afterwards may in fact have a serious impact on such high-ticket items (or the ability to provide them). So the prospect of regular government contracts is almost certainly a huge relief to any company aiming to provide or support suborbital flights.

“This is a big shift for NASA, but it’s an important shift,” Bridenstine said. The shift is not simply relying more on private industry, which government programs have done lately, but using private flights as official training. He indicated that the flights would need to be extremely safe, though not quite to the same standards as flights to the ISS.

More training and testing, but on flights not actually run by NASA, would increase preparedness for new missions, speed up readiness and reduce complexity of existing programs that rely on NASA-flown missions for those capabilities. I’ve asked the agency for more information on this topic and will update the post if I hear back.

Source: Tech Crunch

COVID-19 commanded an understandably outsized presence in Jeff Bezos’s annual shareholder letter last week. The Amazon exec laid out the company’s plans for addressing the pandemic on a number of different levels, including building a testing lab for employees, along “with regular testing of all Amazonians, including those showing no symptoms.”

It has become a given that Amazon would test employees exhibiting fever and other COVID-19 symptoms. The company is, after all, one of the primary retail backbones for the U.S. and a number of other countries. And while the World Health Organization has stated that it doesn’t believe the virus can be transmitted via parcels, the virus has the potential to spread extremely quickly within a warehouse.

The notion of testing employees who don’t exhibit symptoms has been a less pressing question, however, due in no small part to the limited availability of testing kits. But as the WHO, CDC and other organizations have made abundantly clear, it’s entirely possible to carry the virus while remaining asymptomatic — a fact that’s made the novel coronavirus all the more scary.

Once testing becomes more readily available, it will be important to determine whether employers can, in fact, mandate testing, regardless of whether employees exhibit symptoms. There are important matters of both public safety and personal sovereignty to take into account.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been actively updating guidance for employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act:

The EEO laws, including the ADA and Rehabilitation Act, continue to apply during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they do not interfere with or prevent employers from following the guidelines and suggestions made by the CDC or state/local public health authorities about steps employers should take regarding COVID-19. Employers should remember that guidance from public health authorities is likely to change as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves. Therefore, employers should continue to follow the most current information on maintaining workplace safety.

Among the updated issues to deal with the pandemic is screening, which includes a temperature check. “During a pandemic, ADA-covered employers may ask such employees if they are experiencing symptoms of the pandemic virus,” the EEOC continues. “For COVID-19, these include symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat. Employers must maintain all information about employee illness as a confidential medical record in compliance with the ADA.”

We put the question to Tricia Bozyk Sherno, counsel at Debevoise & Plimpton, who focuses on employment and general commercial litigation.

“For current employees, a medical inquiry or exam is permitted for current employees only if the employer has a reasonable belief that a particular employee will provide a ‘direct threat’ due to a medical condition,” Sherno explains. “For new employees, the ADA permits employers to conduct medical examinations after a conditional offer of employment is made, but before an individual begins working, provided that all employees in the same job category must be subject to the same examination requirement. The primary ‘medical examination’ considered by the existing EEOC guidance is temperature measurements. Available guidance does not yet address COVID-19 testing.”

The current rules around testing aren’t entirely clear under current guidelines, but expect that to continue to evolve as testing becomes more widely available and state governments begin to loosen stay-at-home restrictions. We can likely expect that the guidance will no longer apply once the pandemic is no longer deemed a threat. What remains consistent under ADA guidelines, however, is the illegality of firing an individual over a condition like COVID-19.

“The ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals with a disability and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for such individuals,” says Sherno. “Local and state laws may also provide additional protections for impacted employees.”

Source: Tech Crunch