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Every sport has its practice drills and exercises to help players hone skills between games. Why would esports be any different?
Gwoop, a startup out of Minnesota, wants to be the place where gamers go to train between matches. They’re building up a collection of free browser-based training tools meant to help you measure and improve vital stats like reaction time, mouse control, and aim, and see how your stats compare to the best.
Some of the training games currently up and running:
- Reaction Training: Wait for it…. click! As soon as the screen changes from grey to orange, you click the mouse button. The lower your reaction time (measured in milliseconds), the better. Harder levels throw in more colors to fake you out and give you a bit of pause.
- Visual Speed: Target boxes spawn one-at-a-time all around a 2D plane. Click one, and another appears. The more boxes you click before time runs out, the higher your score.
- Keyboard speed: Straightforward keyboard key-finding practice, because any time spent looking at your keyboard is time not spent dodging shots.
- Mouse control: If you can’t get your mouse to go where you want it, you can’t aim. Gwoop’s mouse control exercise has you drag a ball through a curved track; the more tracks you complete, the higher your score.
- FPS Training Arena: Strafe around a 3D arena (pictured up top), scanning for randomly generated targets and clicking them as they appear. Bonus points for hitting the dead center of a target.
All of the tools are linked back to an analytics dashboard, allowing you to gauge your performance metrics over time. Each skill gets its own leaderboard so you can see, for example, how your average reaction time compares to others worldwide and amongst your friends.
Even in its 3D exercises, Gwoop’s graphics are pretty simple — and that’s intentional. They want it to work for as many players as possible. They’ve got no reason to try to look like a AAA title; the more graphically intense a game is, the more powerful your computer would have to be to run it smoothly. Co-founder Gavin Lee tells me that their goal is to keep it so that “all you need is a computer and the Internet. It doesn’t matter if your device is 10 years old.” Even its 2D exercises have switches you can flip to further simplify the graphics and improve performance.
It’s the same reason they’ve built everything to work in the browser: not requiring any downloads means more people can train, with the added benefit for the Gwoop team of not having to worry about maintaining separate Mac/PC clients.
While the existing exercises might seem focused around improving first-person shooter skills, Lee tells me that they’re aiming to be “genre-agnostic” and are planning expansions tailored to other kinds of games. He mentions a “MOBA Arena” in the works meant to help polish skills required for games like League of Legends or DOTA, and another exercise-in-progress that’s “very Rocket League centric.” Their training tools seem mostly focused on keyboard/mouse users right now, but they’re working on more functionality for players who prefer controllers.
Gwoop is entirely free to players —so how will they make money? Lee tells me they’ve got two different strategies there: they’ll sell additional advanced analytics tools to teams, and, once they’ve got enough players clicking around, hopefully be able to serve as a platform for esports recruiters. Lee says players should be able to opt-in to having their data shared with potential sponsors and esports teams, with Gwoop getting paid to connect the dots. “All these division one schools have these platforms where you can upload football films and get recruited,” says Lee “we want to become that platform [for esports].”
Why the name “Gwoop”? Is it a bit of super cool gaming lingo, or some sort of acronym? Nope! It was just a quick, memorable domain Lee had been holding onto for decades. “I wish I had a better story for you,” he says, “but I bought the domain in 2002 just because I wanted a five letter domain that you could pronounce and was available.” It’s okay, Gavin: most people don’t care why Google is called Google, after all.
The team’s timing is pretty good here. With most people being stuck at home, more people are getting into gaming than ever before. Battle Royale games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends are blowing up… but it’s hard to get better in a game where you spend the first ten minutes looting only to get shredded in 10 seconds when a skilled team rotates through. While many titles have dedicated training areas or firing ranges to practice in, they’re usually meant more for quick pre-game warmups and don’t do things like help you track metrics and improvements over time.
The Minneapolis-based team is currently comprised of its three cofounders. It’s self-funded to date, but I’m told a seed round is underway.
Gwoop is currently in semi-closed Beta and generally requires an invite to signup, but Lee tells me that the code #TC2021# should let our readers past the signup gate.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/gwoop-academy-wants-to-help-you-get-better-at-video-games/
Following its $16 million Series B last fall, event discovery network IRL is launching a new website that adds more social features around events, including profiles, chats and the ability to join group events, among other things. With the changes, users will also be able to receive personalized event recommendations, participate in group events, as well as talk about events with their friends, across both web and mobile. The combined efforts make IRL.com feel less like an online event search engine and more like a real social network.
The startup, which had previously focused on real-world events, could have easily imploded last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which effectively shut down the in-person events industry overnight. But it instead quickly pivoted its event discovery app to include virtual events. In April, IRL adapted to the government lockdowns and restrictions on in-person gatherings by indexing online events, like livestreamed concerts, esports events, Zoom parties and more.
The changes, in a way, made IRL more accessible because it became a tool that anyone could use — not only those with the time and money to travel and attend real-world events.
Image Credits: IRL
In fitting with those changes, the company also last year redesigned its mobile app to make it easier for users to find new events to attend remotely.
It organized events into categories like gaming, music, tv, wellness, sports, podcasts, lifestyle and more — including those sourced from partners like TikTok, Meetup, Twitch, Spotify, SoundCloud, HBO, Ticketmaster, Eventbrite and others. (We’re also seeing Apple TV+ shows on the site, but IRL can’t officially confirm if Apple is a partner. We’re told IRL does have permission to display these events, however.)
The new IRL website is meant to better mirror the recently redesigned mobile experience.
As users join IRL.com for the first time, they can pick event categories they’re interested in and find their friends who are already using the service.
Also like the mobile app, you can now click across filters at the top of the website to drill down into events by category — like gaming, music, TV, sports, wellness, lifestyle, podcasts and others. And you can filter to see events taking place this weekend or view IRL’s own suggestions of “Top Picks.”
The site directs users to create their own group events with friends through the new built-in chat feature, which had previously only been available on mobile.
“Because everybody’s at home, there’s a big demand for a web messenger,” notes IRL founder and CEO Abraham Shafi.
Image Credits: IRL
He explains that the startup’s focus around messaging as the basis for a group is what allows IRL to differentiate itself from other groups-focused products. Facebook Groups, for example, are built around the idea of discussion boards, he says. But IRL is instead building its social network around messaging.
“There’s no group chatting app that also allows you to add events,” Shafi says. “We’re seeing that become really valuable for any groups that have upcoming and scheduled activities. It could be a TV show that you really like. Or it could be your friends playing Among Us or playing video games. [On IRL], you can imagine, literally, any type of group — like a book club that meets weekly and has weekly events coming up,” he says.
In addition, students who sign up with an .edu email address can now find on-campus events and groups that are available only to those who attend the same school. These aren’t typically indexed publicly and won’t appear on the IRL homepage.
Image Credits: IRL
The startup’s focus on group messaging has helped the app grow, despite the pandemic.
The company now reports over 10 million monthly active users, and its group messaging feature has been growing at around 30% month over month since August. Today, there are over 30 million chats sent on IRL per day, with over a billion chats that have been sent to date, Shafi says.
In time, IRL plans to expand the site to include more local events as well as deepen its relationship with partners.
For example, the IRL TikTok account has been the first to reach over a million followers. But currently, all the events TikTok posts to the site are hand-curated. IRL says it’s working on a deeper integration that will help pull in more TikTok content, including top trends.
The company also expects to attract more influencers with the website launch, like those who want to build a name for themselves as a “cool curator” of a specific type of event — such as the Sneakerheads account, for instance, which tracks sneaker drops.
Image Credits: IRL
As users participate on the website and app by following events, adding friends, and joining chats, IRL will be able to make better recommendations as to what sort of events they might like to try next.
And as the world recovers from COVID, allowing in-person events once again, the company believes usage will jump.
“When in-person returns — because that’s inevitable — we’ll be supporting that, for sure,” says Shafi, adding that he expects IRL to then “explode.”
“We’re not going to take virtual away. Virtual will always be there … quite honestly, it will probably always be a hybrid,” he says. “This pandemic has allowed us to focus on something that will actually help us grow once we can support both the real and the remote.”
“Me and the team are very grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to build something deeply meaningful in these times — even though at the outset, it would have seemed like we were screwed,” Shafi adds.
Initially, IRL tested the web app’s revamp only with its existing users. But the relaunch of the site now makes the changes accessible to all.
A week after introducing Time to Walk, Apple has released another software update aimed at expanding its Fitness+ footprint. With today’s arrival the developer seed of watchOS 7.4 and iOS 14.5, the company is adding a new feature that will make it possible to stream workouts to an AirPlay enabled TV – with some caveats.
Users can stream audio and video the company’s subscription-based fitness app to AirPlay 2-enabled sets. That’s a nice addition for those without an Apple TV and users looking to bring the service on the road with them via compatible hotel TVs (when people start staying in hotels again).
The biggest difference here is that metrics won’t be displayed on screen. That means you lose things like your rings, calories burned, etc. They’ll have to rely on the connected Apple Watch and iPhone or iPad for that information. Not the end of the world, but they’re an important part of the Fitness+ experience. Apple no doubt wants to continue to incentivize its own hardware ecosystem, while working to grow the exercise app.
Fitness+ arrived at the right time for the company, as Covid-19 has caused many of us to let our gym memberships lapse, in favor of at home workouts. There’s a question of sustainability of home workouts in general, with the roll out of numerous vaccines.
Maintaining and continuing to grow these applications will require flexibility. When I spoke to Apple about Fitness+ last week, the company noted that it envisions people bringing the app with them on the go. That could mean doing a Fitness+ workout on the iPad at their gym or finding a way to back the experience in a bag and use it during their travels.
The feature is currently available as part of the developer seeds of the new watchOS and iOS versions, and should be available to consumers when the final versions go live.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/apple-fitness-is-adding-airplay-casting/
Smartphone maker Xiaomi has sued the United States government over its inclusion in a military blacklist. The filing, which was submitted on Friday, calls the decision “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
The Chinese smartphone maker adds:
It is not owned or controlled by, or otherwise affiliated with the Chinese government or military, or owned or controlled by any entity affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base. Nor does the Chinese government or military, or any entity affiliated with the defense industrial base, possess the ability to exert control over the management or affairs of the company.
The filing reflects similar statements by the company in the wake of the listing. The designation came in the waning days of the Trump administration, less than a week before Biden’s inauguration. Huawei and DJI have also been caught up in U.S. blacklists in recent years, though those companies were tagged as part of the separate entity list maintained by the Commerce Department. Huawei filed suit against the government in March 2019.
The listing, which is set to go into effect on March 15, bars investment in the smartphone maker. It’s already had an impact on its bottom line. Xiaomi already has a massive global footprint, ranking No. 2 behind Apple and Samsung, according to the latest figures from Canalys. The company saw a 31% annual growth in market share y-o-y for Q4, as the larger industry continued to stall. Xiaomi hasn’t had much visibility in the U.S., but a potential ban in the world’s third-largest market could severely hamper the company’s growth.
It remains to be seen how the new U.S. administration will impact relations with both China and its hardware makers. Notably, the letter addresses Biden appointees Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/xiaomi-sues-the-us-government-over-blacklisting/
Poland-based Telemedico has closed a €5.5 million (~$6.6M) Series A round of funding. The round is led by Flashpoint Venture Capital, Uniqa Ventures, PKO VC, Black Pearls VC (an existing investor) and Adamed.
Telehealth services specifically, and digital health more broadly, have racked up plenty of growth during the pandemic as demand for remote consultations (and other types of support) has accelerated sectoral uplift.
Telemedico, which was founded back in 2014 — but only launched its current b2b model (which is primarily targeted at insurance firms) in 2017 — says 2020 was a record year for its business.
One million consultations were carried out via its platform during the 12-month period, it told us.
Pawel Sieczkiewicz, founder and CEO at Telemedico, says it’s fielding over 100,000 consultations per month at this stage — and is projecting that to increase to 250,000 by the end of 2021.
The platform has been used by more than 900,000 patients to date. While more than 600 doctors currently provide remote consultations for Telemedico.
Services its platform offers include consultations with a doctor via chat, video, telephone; AI-triaging and coordination; and booking of in-person visits and blood testing.
The business has been growing 3x YoY since 2018, per Sieczkiewicz, who says it has carried out more than 2.5 million appointments in total to-date, spanning 10 languages.
It’s expecting to double the size of its (60-strong) team this year, he adds.
The Series A funding will be put towards international expansion — including eyeing potential growth opportunities in LatAm.
Expanding supported languages is part of that plan. (Currently it supports consultations in English, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic; languages it’ll be adding next are: Italian, French, Greek, German, and Romanian.)
Telemedico’s best markets to date are Poland and Spain, per Sieczkiewicz, who says it’s active in 14 markets in total.
“We aim to increase our presence on the markets where we are already active: Spain, Russia, Portugal, Turkey, and launch on new markets, with new languages — mainly EU Countries, like France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Romania,” he adds.
While there’s a lot of activity in the telehealth space, Telemedico bills itself as one of the only ‘plug and play’ platforms for insurance companies — offering a whitelabel service geared towards a sector that Sieczkiewicz argues may not want to relinquish so much control to brasher, brand-building ‘digital first’ competitors.
“We provide our enterprise customers with a platform they can customise to meet their needs and a network of over 600 doctors who speak 10 languages that they can mix with their own network,” he tells TechCrunch. “We help our customers strengthen their value chain, so they can stand up against digital-first insurance companies who have been emerging for the last couple of years.
“The top three competitors are Babylon Health, KRY, and Pushdoctor. They represent a B2C approach, with a strong local presence. They are also building strong brand awareness around the service, and force insurance companies to let their customers leave their ecosystem. From the feedback that we receive from insurance companies, this isn’t their favourite way of organizing the patient flow.”
“One major drawback for insurers using the Babylon-style setup is that in the future, Babylon might be able to begin offering insurance cover directly to consumers, cutting out the original insurance companies themselves — similar to how digital-first insurance companies like Oscar Health operate,” he adds.
Telemedico says its system can be deployed within around 48 hours — letting insurance firms and other enterprise customers offer a telehealth platform that gives their users access to web and mobile white-label patient portals; online consultations; medical documentation storage; in person visits; automated triaging; and symptom checker tools.
The startup also offers insurance companies access to an ‘insurance product creator’ to manage variants of their current product suite for specific groups of users.
Telemedico says its platform is used by “a number” of health ministries around the world, as well as PZU, Allianz, AXA, Metrored, Compensa, TU Zdrowie and more than 50 other insurance and medical assistance companies (“mostly” within the telemedicine space).
It does also offer a direct-to-consumer telehealth service in Poland, via the public healthcare system — where consultation fees are covered by the insurance of the publicly funded National Health Fund of Poland (i.e. free at the point of use for patients).
It also offers consultations via a fee-for-service model. Sieczkiewicz says its USP is “that we are built on three foundations: B2B, whitelabel and cross-country services”.
“Telemedico is primarily a B2B company,” he continues. “The majority of our business comes from recurring enterprise customers, such as insurance companies, banks, pharmacies and other companies who either offer health services and want to improve them with a digital layer or want to offer health services to their digital offering.
“We see a huge trend among insurance companies, that add new healthcare products to their offers. We help create those products with our so-called ‘insurance product creator’, providing them with tools for setting up and management of their digital health services, patient flow, and more.”
He also says the ‘plug and play’ style SaaS platform supports a modular approach — enabling the target b2b users to zero in on the most useful aspects of its platform for their particular customer case (be it telemedicine, drug ordering or automated triage).
The software can be completely integrated into a customer’s platform or run as a stand-alone product, he adds.
“Telemedicine is no longer an add-on to insurance packages but in many countries the first touchpoint with medical services — a way to increase patients satisfaction and decrease costs for the insurer,” Sieczkiewicz suggests.
Commenting on the Series A funding in a statement, Michael Szalontay, general partner at Flashpoint VC, said: “We are convinced that telemedicine will become a primary distribution channel for medical services in the next decade and Telemedico is poised to become a European leader in this domain. We are proud to become Pawel’s partner in Telemedico, he has an amazing energy and conviction, and in our experience, such gumption is a prerequisite for success.”
“This decade will be the Golden Twenties for telemedicine,” added Dr. Andreas Nemeth, general partner at UNIQA Ventures, in another supporting statement. “The potential is enormous and telemedi.co is already setting standards here today. telemedi.co has the right product, the right team and the right culture to support insurers in providing seamless telemedicine services. We are therefore delighted and proud to be able to follow the path together in the future and pleased to be able to become a part of the company’s international growth story.”
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/01/telemedico-gets-6-6m-to-grow-the-reach-of-its-digital-health-saas/
