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Arm today announced Armv9, the next generation of its chip architecture. Its predecessor, Armv8 launched a decade ago and while it has seen its fair share of changes and updates, the new architecture brings a number of major updates to the platform that warrant a shift in version numbers. Unsurprisingly, Armv9 builds on V8 and is backward compatible, but it specifically introduces new security, AI, signal processing and performance features.

Over the last five years, more than 100 billion Arm-based chips have shipped. But Arm believes that its partners will ship over 300 billion in the next decade. We will see the first ArmV9-based chips in devices later this year.

Ian Smythe, Arm’s VP of Marketing for its client business, told me that he believes this new architecture will change the way we do computing over the next decade. “We’re going to deliver more performance, we will improve the security capabilities […] and we will enhance the workload capabilities because of the shift that we see in compute that’s taking place,” he said. “The reason that we’ve taken these steps is to look at how we provide the best experience out there for handling the explosion of data and the need to process it and the need to move it and the need to protect it.”

That neatly sums up the core philosophy behind these updates. On the security side, ArmV9 will introduce Arm’s confidential compute architecture and the concept of Realms. These Realms enable developers to write applications where the data is shielded from the operating system and other apps on the device. Using Realms, a business application could shield sensitive data and code from the rest of the device, for example.

Image Credits: Arm

“What we’re doing with the Arm Confidential Compute Architecture is worrying about the fact that all of our computing is running on the computing infrastructure of operating systems and hypervisors,” Richard Grisenthwaite, the chief architect at Arm, told me. “That code is quite complex and therefore could be penetrated if things go wrong. And it’s in an incredibly trusted position, so we’re moving some of the workloads so that [they are] running on a vastly smaller piece of code. Only the Realm manager is the thing that’s actually capable of seeing your data while it’s in action. And that would be on the order of about a 10th of the size of a normal hypervisor and much smaller still than an operating system.”

As Grisenthwaite noted, it took Arm a few years to work out the details of this security architecture and ensure that it is robust enough — and during that time Spectre and Meltdown appeared, too, and set back some of Arm’s initial work because some of the solutions it was working on would’ve been vulnerable to similar attacks.

Image Credits: Arm

Unsurprisingly, another area the team focused on was enhancing the CPU’s AI capabilities. AI workloads are now ubiquitous. Arm had already done introduced its Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) a few years ago, but at the time, this was meant for high-performance computing solutions like the Arm-powered Fugaku supercomputer.

Now, Arm is introducing SVE2 to enable more AI and digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities. Those can be used for image processing workloads, as well as other IoT and smart home solutions, for example. There are, of course, dedicated AI chips on the market now, but Arm believes that the entire computing stack needs to be optimized for these workloads and that there are a lot of use cases where the CPU is the right choice for them, especially for smaller workloads.

“We regard machine learning as appearing in just about everything. It’s going to be done in GPUs, it’s going to be done in dedicated processors, neural processors, and also done in our CPUs. And it’s really important that we make all of these different components better at doing machine learning,” Grisenthwaite said.

As for raw performance, Arm believes its new architecture will allow chip manufacturers to gain more than 30% in compute power over the next two chip generations, both for mobile CPUs but also the kind of infrastructure CPUs that large cloud vendors like AWS now offer their users.

“Arm’s next-generation Armv9 architecture offers a substantial improvement in security and machine learning, the two areas that will be further emphasized in tomorrow’s mobile communications devices,” said Min Goo Kim, the executive vice president of SoC development at Samsung Electronics. “As we work together with Arm, we expect to see the new architecture usher in a wider range of innovations to the next generation of Samsung’s Exynos mobile processors.”

Vote counting begins today in the historic effort to unionize Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama fulfillment center. The warehouse — which opened exactly a year ago to meet ramping up demand as COVID-19 bore down on the U.S. — has become ground zero for one of the most import labor efforts in modern American history.

Voting began by mail on February 8, after Amazon repeatedly attempted to delay the vote or force workers to submit ballots in-person, in spite of pandemic restrictions. Things have gotten predictably heated in the days and weeks leading up to yesterday’s official deadline. Though even by the standards of Amazon’s aggressive public relations strategy, thing went surprisingly far.

In particular, the e-commerce giant leveraged Twitter feeds as part of an aggressive anti-union strategy. The company simultaneously sought to bolster its image of existing working conditions while confronting progressive/leftist politicians like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who played a key role in pushing the company toward the $15/hour warehouse minimum wage it now celebrates.

According to reports, the company’s scorched-earth approach against Sanders and fellow New England Senator Elizabeth Warren were spurred on from the top. Founder Jeff Bezos — who will abdicate his CEO position later this year — was said to have encouraged the offensive. Employees at the companies were said to have flagged the offending tweets internally for suspicious activity. Those tickets were reportedly closed.

After antagonist tweets and denying widespread and longstanding reports about Amazon workers peeing in bottles over fears of falling behind on quotas, the Amazon News Twitter reverted to a more positive approach. It has however, continued activity around the vote, including a bid to install video cameras for monitoring boxes carrying ballots — a bid the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has since rejected.

While the vote counting kicks off today, don’t expect immediate results. The process is a methodical and deliberate one. Among other things, there are processes in place for either side to object. It’s clear from Amazon’s recent behavior that the company is well aware that this is far more consequential than the 6,000 or so workers currently employed by the Bessemer location. If the company prevails, it will position the decision as validation of its working conditions. If workers vote to unionize, meanwhile, this could well start a chain reaction across the company.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – MARCH 05: A truck passes as Congressional delegates visit the Amazon Fulfillment Center after meeting with workers and organizers involved in the Amazon BHM1 facility unionization effort, represented by the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union on March 5, 2021 in Birmingham, Alabama. Workers at Amazon facility currently make $15 an hour, however they feel that their requests for less strict work mandates are not being heard by management. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

This week, workers at Amazon’s Germany facilities are going on strike for four days, following a similar move in Italy last week.

“It’s not just workers in Alabama, it’s workers everywhere who are saying to Jeff Bezos that enough is enough. No matter what language they speak, Amazon workers around the globe will not stand for the working conditions they’ve been forced to endure for too long,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) President Stuart Applebaum said in a statement.

The NLRB oversees the vote counting. If workers vote to unionize, Bessemer workers will join the RWDSU. The organization has also seen its share of pushback from Amazon. As the company told TechCrunch last week:

Stuart Appelbaum, Chief Disinformation Officer of RWDSU, in an attempt to save his long declining union, is taking alternative facts to a whole new level. But our employees are smart and know the truth—starting wages of $15 or more, health care from day one, and a safe and inclusive workplace. We encourage all of our employees to vote.

Ballots have been sent to the NLRB’s Birmingham offices. There are a number of grounds on which either side can contest the results. These include everything from signatures to whether the person who cast a vote is, in fact, an eligible employee of Amazon. Even after votes are counted, things are likely to drag on. Court battles seem a likely outcome, moving forward. From there, things could ultimately stretch on for weeks or months.

The battle is a high stakes one that has made unusual political allies from opposite sides of the aisle. There aren’t too many events that have united politicians ranging from Marco Rubio on one side and Sanders, Warren and Joe Biden on the other. That goes double for something as traditionally divisive as labor unions.

“This campaign has already been a victory in many ways,” Appelbaum said in a statement issued late last week. “Even though we don’t know how the vote will turn out, we believe we have opened the door to more organizing around the country.”

Automaker Volkswagen wants you to know it’s serious about electric vehicles — so serious, in fact, that it’s officially rebranding around a pun in the U.S. The company revealed in a press release that it’s changing its name from “Volkswagen of America” to “Voltswagen of America” in a press release today. News this could happen leaked late Monday, but many speculated it might be an April Fool’s joke that got out a bit early, but the automaker seems serious about switching the official brand from May 2021 onwards given the official release on its newsroom.

Voltswagen (neé Volkswagen) says that the reason behind the change is to firmly demonstrate its commitment “future-forward investment in e-mobility,” which said more simply, implies that it’s super serious about its electric drivetrain plans. In a more literal sense, ‘Volkswagen’ is actually from the German for ‘the people’s car,’ which suggests that Voltswagen is a car for… volts?

Sort of, but not really, says VW (hey that still works!):

“We have said, from the beginning of our shift to an electric future, that we will build EVs for the millions, not just millionaires,” explained VW CEO and President Scott Keogh in the release announcing the swap. “This name change signifies a nod to our past as the peoples’ car and our firm belief that our future is in being the peoples’ electric car.”

This announcement comes just as Volkswagen has begun shipping its all-electric SUV, the ID.4, in the U.S. It ha a price tag of $33,995, before either federal and tax incentives, so that is indeed on the more affordable side of the existing U.S. electric vehicle market, with even more options set to come for cost-conscious consumers in future as the company spurs uses its commitments of lowering emissions by achieving one million global EV sales by 2025, and playing host to a lineup of mover 70 models across VW and its subrands worldwide by 2029.

Voltswagen branding will include use of a higher blue tone on the VW logo for all-electric vehicles, while gas cars will retain the more traditional dark blue look. The actual word ‘Voltswagen’ will be used on EVs in addition to the initials logo, with the icon graphic itself will be the sole branding on gas cars in the U.S. going forward.

Cameo, the celebrity video site you’re probably familiar with if you’ve celebrated a birthday in the last three years, announced this morning that it’s raised a $100M Series C. The round, which was led by Jonathan Turner with e.ventures, puts the site’s value at just north of $1 billion.

Cameo has been building a good deal of steam in recent years, but the service is among those that managed to get a major boost amid the pandemic, as celebrities and normals alike suddenly found themselves with a lot more time on their hands.

“The pandemic put extra stress on the already unstable business models supporting talent across sports and entertainment ecosystems,” CEO Steven Galanis said in a Medium post tied to the news. “It catalyzed a massive shift in awareness and widespread adoption of direct-to-fan models, which has, in turn, created a new foundation for fan engagement. We exist in an entirely different world today — one in which talent actually want to connect more deeply with their fans, and fans expect unprecedented access to the talent they admire most. This funding will help us create the access and connections that will define the future of the ‘connection economy’ on a global scale.”

This latest round more than doubles the service’s total funding, bringing it up to $165 million. Google Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, UTA, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Valor Equity Partners and Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley) join existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, The Chernin Group, Origin Venture and Spark Capital. There are also some “talent investors” on board, as well, including skateboarding legend, Tony Hawk. Because, you know, Cameo.

Cameo says some 80% of its standard video requests are booked as gifts, to celebrate things like birthdays. In total, around two million videos have been created through the offering. But the site is looking to grow into additional categories. Last year it added the ability to book celebrities as guests for Zoom video chats (a very pandemic-focused offering).

Some of the funding will go toward ramping up Cameo for Business (C4B), which brings celebrity videos to events and conferences, as well as ads and sales. Effectively, the service works as a pipeline between businesses and famous people. The company will also be expending its international offering, growing beyond the approximately 20% of videos currently purchased outside the U.S.

Slice, the online ordering platform for independent pizzerias, announced two new offerings this morning — a point-of-sale system designed specifically for those businesses, as well as a rewards program for diners.

The launch of the new Slice Register builds on last year’s acquisition of point-of-sale company Instore, and the appointment of its CEO Matt Niehaus as Slice’s senior vice president for payments.

Pizzerias might seem to be a narrow focus for a point-of-sale system, particularly given all the other POS products out there, but Niehaus suggested that many of the 15,000 pizzerias in Slice’s network are still relying on cash registers and pen-and-paper: “If you run a pizzeria, you are certainly great at making pizza, but you are typically less comfortable with the accounting side.”

He also said that existing POS systems aren’t really designed for the needs and workflows of a pizzeria. Slice founder and CEO Ilir Sela added that most of them were designed for offline ordering first, with online support added later. And Niehaus suggested that the average local pizzeria is only seeing 19% of their orders coming from online sources (compared to 75% for the average Domino’s location), that’s a real problem.

“Domino’s is really the competition, not the POS companies,” he said.

Image Credits: Slice

So the Slice Register is a combined software and hardware (including an iPad) solution. Naturally, it integrates with Slice’s online ordering and also includes support for email and mobile marketing, as well as a consolidated view of each customer. Niehaus said that among other things, it’s designed to “grab those customers on one platform and nudge them online.”

Slice Register is available to pizzerias at no initial charge for the hardware or software. The only fee in 2021 will be for payment processing, with additional pricing announced coming next year.

As for the new Slice Rewards program, diners who order pizzas through Slice will get a free large cheese pizza for every eight orders of $15 or more. (Slice, not the restaurant, is paying for the free pizza.) Sela described this as a “very Domino’s-like program,” except that it works across independent pizzerias.

“What we’re learning the local consumer has up to four local favorites, and they love all of these locations equally,” he said. “What we think is really cool is, you’re going to get rewarded for buying at all four of your local favorites.”