• Update: Herehow to get around Amazonerror. Use smile.amazon.com. TechCrunch confirmed this workaround works.

Itnot just you. Amazon Prime Day started 15 minutes ago, and so far, itnot going well for Amazon. The landing page for Prime Day does not work. When most links are clicked, readers are sent to an error page or to a landing page that sends readers back to the main landing page.

Direct links to the product pages, either from outside links or the single product placement on the landing page, seem to work fine. I just bought this tent two weeks ago for $120. Some users are reporting errors when completing a purchase, too.

This is a huge blow to Amazon and its faux holiday Prime Day. The retailer has been pushing this event for weeks and there are some great deals to be had. Itnot a good look for the worldlargest retailer even though the retailer saw glitches last year, too.

Other retailers jumped on Amazonbandwagon and are running big sales around Prime Day. As of this postpublication, both Walmart and Target are not suffering site outages and probably love Amazonoutage.

Also, this.

Updating…

3:30pm EDT: It30 minutes past the launch of Prime Day and the landing page and deal navigation page is still down.

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CRISPR-Cas9, the gene-editing tool that is currently the darling of biotech and many other fields, may not be quite as miraculous as early tests suggested. A new study finds that what scientists thought of as a scalpel may be more like a felling axe, causing damage hundreds of times what was previously observed.

Before anyone panics and checks out the window for mutated monstrosities, it should be said right away that this isn&t a nightmare scenario by any means: the tool can still be used in many ways safely, and the clinical repercussions of the damage are unexplored. But this unexpected limitation of a tool so widely applied will almost certainly put a chill on its use.

CRISPR, as a quick reminder, is basically a molecule that cleanly and reliably snips bases out of DNA strands paired with a molecule that hunts out a single sequence of bases. Together, they act like a pair of laser-guided scissors.

WTF is CRISPR

The idea is that by cutting out a handful of bases in a sequence that produces, for instance, sickle cell anemia, you can disable that gene altogether. This has been shown in numerous studies, and although unexpected insertions and deletions(abbreviated &indels&) of a handful of base pairs has been observed, no greater damage has been expected or seen — until now.

It turns out that some CRISPR edits may produce indels at the scale of thousands of bases — more than enough to affect adjacent genes or otherwise interfere with normal genetic operation.

The study published today in Nature, by Michael Kosicki, Kärt Tomberg and Allan Bradley of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, explains that previous research may have never encountered this type of damage simply because, essentially, it never allowed damage at this scale to occur.

The problem isn&t that CRISPR is going wild and producing this damage on its own; instead, the issue is an unexpectedly sloppy repair job by the cell itself.

After a CRISPR snip, lead author Bradley explained in a Nature news writeup, &the cell will try to stitch things back together. But it doesn&t really know what bits of DNA lie adjacent to each other.&

While doing its best to repair the damage with a bit of its own genetic cutting and pasting, it may accidentally substitute hundreds or thousands of base pairs that weren&t there, or cut out similarly sized ranges that were supposed to remain.

Because previous studies often used many copies of the same thousand-pair (or thereabouts) sequence to watch CRISPR in action, the possibility of thousand-pair damage was pretty much absent. Itonly when using much longer and more diverse strands of DNA that these high-volume indels are possible.

&We speculate that current assessments may have missed a substantial proportion of potential genotypes generated by on-target Cas9 cutting and repair, some of which may have potential pathogenic consequences,& reads the paper.

Fortunately, the damage seems to only occur when the job performed by the CRISPR complex is the cutting out of a sequence, leaving it open for the cell to repair. There are other methods that involve replacing or deactivating sequences that should not provoke this reaction. And like many problems in the practical biological sciences, it doesn&t need to be feared and worried about — it needs to be studied and accounted for.

All the same, having serious genetic damage accompany any part of this revolutionary technique will surely (or at least hopefully) spur inquiry and countermeasures, even if it means tapping the brakes on certain existing therapies, experiments and companies.

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Mobility is undergoing a radical transformation and the topic will be thoroughly examined at Disrupt SF this September. We&re excited to have BMWDieter May speak on the main stage about how the German car company is addressing the connected car while still building, what they say is, the ultimate driving machine.

And bonus! May plans to unveil something brand new right on the Main Stage. We can&t share many details on the unveiling, but we can say that itcertainly worth your attention.

May has been at BMW since 2014 when he joined the car company after eight years at Nokia. He currently leads the digital products and services as a Senior Vice President. Itan interesting position that puts him in the middle of merging consumer technology with the driving experience — and doing it in a safe manner. Thatthe tricky part and a topic we&re excited to speak to him about.

BMW is in a tough position like most auto makers. Consumers expect the latest and flashiest technology. Massive LCD screens are expected now to display rich navigation with always-updated information. Auto makers need to deploy this technology in a manner that is safe and practical. BMW just revealed its latest in-car operating system that upends traditional BMW style in favor of whatbest for the driver.

We&re excited to talk to talk to May about how automakers and startups alike should address consumerexpectations.

Dieter May joins several other notable figures in the mobility space speaking at Disrupt SF including CruiseKyle Vogt and AuroraChris Urmson.

Passes to Disrupt SF 2018 are available at the Early Bird rate until July 25here.

Hear BMWDieter May explain the connected car at Disrupt SF 2018

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Uber head of policy for autonomous vehicles and urban aviation, Justin Erlich, has left the company to join self-driving car startup Voyage, TechCrunch has learned.

&I was really excited at the prospect of joining such a great early stage team, and by its initial focus on deploying in communities who stand to benefit among the most from this technology & senior citizens,& Erlich told TechCrunch via email.

To lead its policy efforts for autonomous vehicles, Uber recently brought on Miriam Chaum, previously of Philanthropy University.Erlichdeparture comes a couple of months after Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden, who oversaw Uber Elevate, left the company.

&We wish Justin all the best with his new opportunity at Voyage,& an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch.

At Voyage, Erlich will lead the companystrategy, policy and legal efforts. Voyage, led by CEO Oliver Cameron, spun out of Udacity last year and has since deployed Level 4 autonomous vehicles in retirement communities in California and Florida.

&From our very first meeting I knew we had to find a way to bring Justin to Voyage,& Cameron told TechCrunch via email.&Justin is one of those rare entrepreneurs who can duck and dive into any world and do a world-class job. We&re excited to have someone of his experience, from his time at Uber ATG and more, as a key leader at Voyage.&

Erlich previously worked under Attorney General Kamala Harris, where he focused on emerging technology and the key policies that the government will want to have in place to ensure technology helps the people of California. During his time, autonomous vehicles were becoming more and more exciting, he told me back in February. You can hear that full conversation below.

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AppleApp Store continues to outpace Google Play on revenue. In the first half of the year, the App Store generated nearly double the revenue of Google Play on half the downloads, according to a new report from Sensor Tower out today. In terms of dollars and cents, that$22.6 billion in worldwide gross app revenue on the App Store versus $11.8 billion for Google Play & or, 1.9 times more spent on the App Store compared with what was spent on Google Play.

AppleApp Store revenue nearly double that of Google Play in first half of 2018

This trend is not new. AppleiOS store has consistently generated more revenue than its Android counterpart for years due to a number of factors & including the fact that Android users historically have spent less on apps than iOS users, as well as the fact that there are other Android app stores consumer can shop & like the Amazon Appstore or Samsung Store, for example. In addition, Google Play is not available in China, but AppleApp Store is.

Last year, consumer spending on the App Store reached $38.5 billion, again nearly double that of Google Play$20.1 billion.

As the new figures for the first half of 2018 indicate, consumer spending is up this year.

Sensor Tower estimates it has increased by 26.8 percent on iOS compared with the same period in 2017, and itup by 29.7 percent on Google Play.

The growth in spending can be partly attributed to subscription apps like Netflix, Tencent Video, and even Tinder, as has been previously reported.

Subscription-based apps are big businesses these days, having helped to boost app revenue in 2017 by 77 percent to reach $781 million, according to an earlier study. Netflix was also2017top non-game app by revenue, and recently became ranked as the top (non-game) app of all-time by worldwide consumer spend, according to App AnnieApp Store retrospective.

Many of the other all-time top apps following Netflix were also subscription-based, including Spotify (#2), Pandora (#3), Tencent Video (#4), Tinder (#5), and HBO NOW (#8), for example.

And Netflix is again the top non-game app by consumer spending in the first half of 2018, notes Sensor Tower.

AppleApp Store revenue nearly double that of Google Play in first half of 2018

Game spending, however, continues to account for a huge chunk of revenue.

Consumer spending on games grew 19.1 percent in the first half of 2018 to $26.6 billion across both stores, representing roughly 78 percent of the total spent ($16.3 billion on the App Store and $10.3 billion on Google Play).Honor of Kings from Tencent, Monster Strike from Mixi, and Fate/Grand Order from Sony Aniplex were the top grossing games across both stores.

AppleApp Store revenue nearly double that of Google Play in first half of 2018

App downloads were also up in the first half of the year, if by a smaller percentage.

Worldwide first-time app installs grew to 51 billion in 1H18, or up 11.3 percent compared with the same time last year, when downloads were then 45.8 billion across the two app stores.

Facebook led the way on this front with WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Instagram as the top four apps across both the App Store and Google Play combined. The most downloaded games werePUBG Mobile from Tencent, Helix Jump from Voodoo, and Subway Surfers from Kiloo.

Google Play app downloads were up a bit more (13.1 percent vs iOS10.6 percent) year-over-year due to Androidreach in developing markets, reaching 36 billion. Thataround 2.4 times the App Store15 billion.

Despite this, Appleplatform still earned more than double the revenue with fewer than half the downloads, which is remarkable. And it can&t all be chalked up to China. (The country contributed about 31.7 percent of the App Store revenue last quarter, or $7.1 billion, to give you an idea.)

Sensor Tower tells TechCrunch that even if China was removed from the picture, the App Store would have generated $15.4 billion gross revenue for first half of 2018, which is still about 30 percent higher than Google Play$11.8 billion.

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The FCC has been under serious scrutiny by citizens, advocates and politicians alike due to its laissez-faire attitude toward, in particular, the proposed Sinclair Broadcasting merger with Tribune. But the agency is showing some backbone today with a no-nonsense declaration that the merger can&t go through unless a few &serious concerns& are addressed. Itnot the outright disapproval many have recommended, but itbetter than an unconditional green light.

In a short memo posted to the agencysite, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explained that even under his notoriously (or blessedly, depending on your politics) deregulatory regime, the proposed deal is not acceptable as is. Here it is in full:

Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair/Tribune transaction. The evidence we&ve received suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law. When the FCC confronts disputed issues like these, the Communications Act does not allow it to approve a transaction. Instead, the law requires the FCC to designate the transaction for a hearing in order to get to the bottom of those disputed issues. For these reasons, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would designate issues involving certain proposed divestitures for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge.

The issue is that the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger would result in a company that controls a huge amount of TV stations — far more than is healthy for a single company. This was demonstrated effectively by a viral video demonstrated earlier this year showing news anchors at Sinclair stations reading the exact same script without acknowledging that it was under the direction of their owner. (Ironically, the script was regarding ethics and accountability in the media.)

In order to make the deal more palatable, Sinclair offered to divest itself of a number of stations. But these promises appear to have been &less than candid,& as former FCC counsel Gigi Sohn put it; &This transaction would place far too many free over-the-air broadcast stations and far too much power in the hands of one company,& she concluded.

Chairman Pai, surprisingly, appears to have come to the same conclusion. Perhaps Sinclairplans to puppeteer these stations were transparent, or perhaps there are too many eyes on the commission right now to let something like this slide, but whatever the case, the merger can&t go forward without FCC approval — and now FCC approval won&t go forward without this hearing and revised divestiture plans.

This is a pleasant surprise for critics of the FCC who have repeatedly argued that the agency isn&t just soft on broadcasters and other big cable and internet businesses, but may be effectively in bed with them.

FCCfavors for Sinclair are the natural byproduct of a pro-industry agenda

&As I have noted before, too many of this agencymedia policies have been custom built to support the business plans of Sinclair Broadcasting,& said Commissioner Rosenworcel in a statement accompanying and applauding the chairman&s. &With this hearing designation order, the agency will finally take a hard look at its proposed merger with Tribune. This is overdue and favoritism like this needs to end.&

The FCCmulti-part &modernization& of rules governing media companies has contributed powerfully to the feeding frenzy of consolidation we&ve seen over the last couple of years, and the Sinclair-Tribune merger is just one of many deals that watchdogs have warned about. But it seems that this one at least will get some consumer-positive checks in the near future.

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