Technology

Startups have done some wild things to get the attention of VCs. In fact, Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta sent YC partner (at the time) Garry Tan a six-pack of beer through the service after missing the deadline for Y Combinator by two months.

Yesterday, the ingenuity of startups struck again.

Tadabase.io, an enterprise startup that offers no-code tools to help businesses automate their processes, has had an ad running that was… well, hyper targeted.

ProductHunt founder and WeekendFund investor Ryan Hoover discovered the ad and shared it on Twitter.

Hoover told TechCrunch he was Googling Mark Suster to facilitate an introduction between Suster and one of Hooverportfolio companies. Instead, he found a Google ad directed squarely at Suster from Tadabase.io.

&Mark Suster, you haven&t invested in nocode& read the paid listing. &Therefore, we put this ad here to get your attention. If you&re not Mark, please don&t click here and save us some money.&

I reached out to Suster, managing partner at UpFront Ventures, to see what he thought of the ad. He told me he &loved it& and has already contacted the CEO to set up a call for next week.

Whether this clever Google ad will result in an actual investment is yet to be determined. Also unclear: will Ryan Hoover get in on the deal?

I reached out to Tadabase founder and CEO Moe Levine via email to ask about the ad, how they went about targeting, and how he feels about his upcoming phone call next week. He hasn&t responded yet. I&ll update if/when he does.

Late Friday night, Disney said that it would be making Frozen 2 available this Sunday, March 15.

The accelerated release date, a full three months ahead of its planned date, comes as all sorts of release schedules, premieres, and even entire new seasons of television shows are canceled or paused as Hollywood crafts its own response to the CoVID-19 outbreak.

&‘Frozen 2& has captivated audiences around the world through its powerful themes of perseverance and the importance of family, messages that are incredibly relevant during this time, and we are pleased to be able to share this heartwarming story early with our Disney+ subscribers to enjoy at home on any device,& said Disneynew CEO Bob Chapek in a statement.

Disney (along with Fox, which it owns) has pushed back the release of anticipated films like the live action version of &Mulan&, the Marvel superhero movie, &The New Mutants&, and the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror film, &Antlers&.

Pushing up the release date on &Frozen 2& makes sense, given that Disney is now basically a television, streaming and gaming company — much like every other studio struggling to adapt to the need for social distancing is prompting movie theaters to either close or dramatically reduce their capacity. At the same time, there have been reports that Disney has had issues producing original shows and movies for its streaming service.

The company previously pushed up the streaming release date of &Avengers: Endgame& to coincide with the launch of Disney+.

Internationally, the company is making &Frozen 2& available on Disney+ in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday, March 17.

U.S. audiences wanting to watch the movie on Sunday will only be able to stream it in high def. Ultra HD video playback isn&t going to be available until Tuesday.

In a press conference yesterday, featuring a parade of executives from companies like CVS and Target, Trump hinted at the possibility of adding the U.K. and Ireland to a growing list of countries banned from U.S. travel. During a followup presser today helmed by Presidential COVID-19 point person, Mike, Pence, the additions were made official.

The Vice President noted that the decision was made following &unanimous recommendation& from health officials. &The President has made a decision to suspend all travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland, effective midnight Monday, EST,& Pence announced, adding, &Americans in the UK and Ireland can come home […] but they will be funneled through specific airports and processes.&

Those are the usual caveats for the recent string of bans. In many cases, returning citizens have been subject to screenings to ensure that they&re not harboring the virus. The moves are intended to reflect the spread of the virus.

&If you look at what was formally the main feeder of this outbreak. They have 80,000 cases but only 11 new cases and seven new deaths,& immunologist Anthony Fauci said, following Pence. &Things have switched over from China now and that is what has switched over the travel restrictions. You will see a curve of how the coronavirus outbreak evolved…we&ve seen it already with China and we&re starting to see it with Korea.&

The U.K. and Ireland were previously spared from the 30 day European travel ban. The list previously included, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Apple will be closing all of its stores outside of China until March 27th.

In a statement on the companywebsite attributed to Tim Cook, the company attributed the decision to lessons it had learned from its response to the outbreak in China, where the disease was first identified.

&What we&ve learned together has helped us all develop the best practices that are assisting enormously in our global response,& Cook wrote. &One of those lessons is that the most effective way to minimize risk of the virustransmission is to reduce density and maximize social distance. As rates of new infections continue to grow in other places, we&re taking additional steps to protect our team members and customers.&

The company committed to paying all of its hourly workers as if the stores were remaining open. It said it would also expand its leave policies to accommodate personal or family health circumstances caused by COVID-19 — including recovering from illness, caring for someone infected, mandatory quarantining or childcare challenges due to school closures.

The company reached $15 million in donations to COVID-19 response efforts and said it will be matching employee donations two-to-one to support response efforts, locally, nationally, and internationally.

&The global spread of COVID-19 is affecting every one of us,& Cook wrote. &At Apple, we are people first and we do what we do with the belief that technology can change lives and hope that it can be a valuable tool in moments like this.&

Welcome back to This Week inApps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with arecord 204 billion downloads in 2019and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annierecently released &State of Mobile& annual report. People are now spending 3 hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren&t just a way to pass idle hours — they&re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.

This week we&re taking a look at several stories related to the coronavirus outbreak, including the cancellation of WWDC in San Jose, as well as other app industry events that are going online. We&re also discussing the iOS 14 leak, the exposure of Sensor Towerapp network, a potential ban on TikTok for government workers and more.

Coronavirus Special Coverage

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are continuing to play out on app stores and across the industry. This week, we&re leading with these stories followed by the other — and yes, still important — news.

Apple finally cancels its WWDC event in San Jose

It's official- we love foldable phones in the UAE.

Huawei made it's foldable phone, the Mate Xs, available for pre-orders on the 11th of March and, just four days later, the phone has already been sold out. 

Priced at AED 9,999 the Huawei Mate Xs is easily the most expensive phone we've come across but that doesn't seem to drive consumers away. In