Technology

Zombie-like passive consumption of static video is both unhealthy for viewers and undifferentiated for the tech giants that power it. Thatset Facebook on a mission to make video interactive, full of conversation with broadcasters and fellow viewers. Itracing against Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat to become where people watch together and don&t feel like asocial slugs afterward.

Thatwhy Facebook today told TechCrunch that itacqui-hired Vidpresso, buying its seven-person team and its technology but not the company itself. The six-year-old Utah startup works with TV broadcasters and content publishers to make their online videos more interactive with on-screen social media polling and comments, graphics and live broadcasting integrated with Facebook, YouTube, Periscope and more. The goal appears to be to equip independent social media creators with the same tools these traditional outlets use so they can make authentic but polished video for the Facebook platform.

Financial terms of the deal weren&t disclosed, but it wouldn&t have taken a huge price for the deal to be a success for the startup. Vidpresso had only raised a $120,00 in seed capital from Y Combinator in 2014, plus some angel funding. By 2016, it was telling hiring prospects that it was profitable, but also that, &We will not be selling the company unless some insane whatsapp like thing happened. We&re building a forever biz, not a flip.& So either Vidpresso lowered its bar for an exit or Facebook made coming aboard worth its while.

For now, Vidpresso clients and partners like KTXL, Univision, BuzzFeed, Turner Sports, Nasdaq, TED, NBC and others will continue to be able to use its services. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that customers will work with the Vidpresso team at Facebook, who are joining its offices in Menlo Park, London and LA. That means Facebook is at least temporarily becoming a provider of enterprise video services. But Facebook confirms it won&t charge Vidpresso clients, so they&ll be getting its services for free from now on. Whether Facebook eventually turns away old clients or stops integrating with competing video platforms like Twitch and YouTube remains to be seen. For now, itgiving Vidpresso a much more dignified end than the sudden shutdowns some tech giants impose on their acquisitions.

&We&ve had a lot of false starts along the way . . . We finally landed on helping create high quality broadcasts back on social media, but we still haven&t realized the full vision yet.Thatwhy we&re joining Facebook,& the Vidpresso team writes. &This gives us the best opportunity to accelerate our vision and offer a simple way for creators, publishers, and broadcasters to use social media in live video at a high quality level . . .By joining Facebook, we&ll be able to offer our tools to a much broader audience than just our A-list publishing partners. Eventually, it&ll allow us to put these tools in the hands of creators, so they can focus on their content, and have it look great, without spending lots of time or money to do so.&

Facebook Live has seen 3.5 billion broadcasts to date, and they get six times as many interactions as traditional videos. But beyond public figures, game streamers, and the odd moment of citizen journalism, itbecome clear that most users don&t have compelling enough content to stream. Interactivity could take some pressure off the broadcaster by letting the audience chip in.

Facebook already has some interactive video experiments out in the wild. For users, it recently rolled out its Watch Party tool for letting Groups view and chat about videos together. Italso trying new games like Lip Sync Live and a Talent Show feature where users submit videos of them singing. For creators, Facebook now let streamers earn tips with its new Stars virtual currency, and lets fans subscribe to donating money to their favorite video makers like on Patreon. And on the publisher side,Facebook Live has also built tools to help publishers pull in social media content. Iteven got an interactive video API that itdeveloping to allow developers to launch their own HQ Trivia-game shows.

But the last line of Vidpressoannouncement above explains Facebookintentions here, and also why it didn&t just try to build the tools itself. It doesn&t just want established news publishers and TV studios making video for its platform. It wants semi-pro creators to be able to broadcast snazzy videos with graphics, comments and polls that can aesthetically compete with &big video& but that feel more natural. This focus on creators over news outlets aligns with reports of Facebooks head of journalist relations Campbell Brown allegedly saying that Mark Zuckerberg doesn&t care about publishers and that&We are not interested in talking to you about your traffic and referrals any more. That is the old world and there is no going back.& Facebook has contested these reports.

Every internet platform is wising up to the fact that web-native creators who grew up on their sites often create the most compelling content and the most fervent fan bases. Whichever video hub offers the best audience growth, creative expression tools and monetization options will become the preferred destination for creators& work, and their audiences will follow. Vidpresso could help these creators look more like TV anchors than selfie monologuers, but also help them earn money by integrating brand graphics and tie-ins. Facebook couldn&t risk another tech giant buying up Vidpresso and gaining an edge, or wasting time trying to build interactive video technology and expertise from scratch.

Y Combinator has invested $120,000 in Mac&d, a build-your-own mac and cheese restaurant that lets customers choose their own adventure from the beginning. I popped over to one of the Mac&d locations last week in San Francisco to get my mac on and chat with the founders.

For starters, the mac and cheese was bomb. Sure, one could argue ithard to mess up mac and cheese, but itsomehow been done before. Trust me, I know this from firsthand experience.

I opted for a relatively basic mac and cheese with what Mac&d calls its &#Basic& sauce, which is a blend of cheddar cheeses, a spice mix and a hint of asiago. From there, I selected a combination of a shells and elbow noodle base. For those who are gluten-free, Mac&d also offers a cauliflower base. Next, I picked my mix-ins. Again, I&m super basic, so I just went with bacon and topped it with pulled pork and breadcrumbs.

Although the restaurant is tech-enabled, itless of a tech play and more of a restaurant play, Mac&d founder Chen-Chen Huo (pictured above on right) told TechCrunch.

&I wouldn&t necessarily say with full confidence that we&re a tech company but we&re a company that participates in a lot of tech and integrates tech into the production of our product to grow the business,& Huo told me.

Mac&d currently has two brick-and-mortar locations, both of which are in San Francisco. Mac&d is also available in Portland through what Huo describes as a ghost kitchen. In fact, ghost kitchens are part of the companyexpansion plans for at least the next 12 months, as it aims to be in about five to seven cities.

&How we plan to do that isn&t necessarily building out more brick-and-mortars in these cities but our expansion strategy sort of ties into that idea of cloud kitchens — sort of like ghost kitchens,& Huo said. &Essentially we move into commissary kitchens and hop on to existing catering and delivery networks and serve our customers like that.&

In Portland, Mac&d rents out some kitchen space and sells its mac and cheese strictly through providers like UberEats, Caviar, DoorDash, Postmates and others.

The idea is that once Mac&d determines some of the patterns of a specific market via its low-capital ghost kitchen approach, the company can make a more informed decision of where to open a brick-and-mortar location. Eventually opening brick-and-mortar locations in cities is important, Mac&d co-owner Antony Bello (pictured above on left) told TechCrunch, because it helps build up the brand and get people on board with the experience.

&Itan interesting new wave of restaurants,& Bello said. &As far as marketing strategies, itmore salient to come in and experience the food because you get a better sense of the kind of people that are behind this. Putting a face behind it is more difficult if itall online and digital.&

Mac&d got its start by doing a series of pop-ups in San Francisco last January. The mac and cheese restaurant opened its first permanent location in July 2017, located in San FranciscoMarina district. That first location, Huo said, was entirely bootstrapped — in part thanks to the money earned through the pop-ups. Mac&d was able to open its second brick-and-mortar location a couple of months ago in June, funded solely off the profits of its first location.

&Theoretically, if we were to continue this trajectory, we could continue to bootstrap and continue to organically grow,& Huo said. &But if thereanything about going through YC, itrealizing the power and benefits of expanding quickly but also efficiently and thoughtfully, and taking it one step at a time.&

A little bot named QTrobot from LuxAI could be the link between therapists, parents, and autistic children. The robot, which features an LCD face and robotic arms, allows kids who are overwhelmed by human contact to become more comfortable in a therapeutic setting.

The project comes from LuxAI, a spin-off of the University of Luxembourg. They will present their findings at the RO-MAN 2018 conference at the end of this month.

&The robot has the ability to create a triangular interaction between the human therapist, the robot, and the child,& co-founder Aida Nazarikhorram told IEEE. &Immediately the child starts interacting with the educator or therapist to ask questions about the robot or give feedback about its behavior.&

The robot reduces anxiety in autistic children and the researchers saw many behaviors & hand flapping, for example & slow down with the robot in the mix.

Interestingly the robot is a better choice for children than an app or tablet. Because the robot is &embodied,& the researchers found that it that draws attention and improves learning, especially when compared to a standard iPad/educational app pairing. In other words children play with tablets and work with robots.

The robot is entirely self-contained and easily programmable. It can run for hours at a time and includes a 3D camera and full processor.

The researchers found that the robot doesn&t become the focus of the therapy but instead helps the therapist connect with the patient. This, obviously, is an excellent outcome for an excellent (and cute) little piece of technology.