Government and policy

Why a European mobile operating system can’t challenge Android and iOS

Corporates and innovation, Ecosystems, Government and policy, Insider, Investors and funding, Next Featured / Mike M. / March 24, 2023

Recently, we asked if it was possible for Europe to have a dominant smartphone again. The answer was simple: no, not unless there’s some sort of miracle.

The reason behind this is multifaceted, but the core point is that because Asia hosts the majority of the world’s mobile manufacturing facilities, it’s borderline impossible for European companies to create a good enough phone at a low enough price to succeed.

But, here at TNW, we had another question: could Europe launch its own mobile operating system?

Why do we need a European mobile OS?

On first inspection, it’s an excellent idea. A European operating system could wrestle some of the power back from Silicon Valley behemoths iOS and Android. Also, it wouldn’t require the use of factories or raw materials, as the software could be developed in the continent itself.

Then let’s not forget that Europe has been at the forefront of digital privacy regulation, with initiatives like the GDPR and strict data-scraping laws enforcing citizens’ rights against data-hungry US tech giants.

A European mobile operating system, then, could be used to ensure privacy at the highest level for people and extend an element of control over the tech ecosystem. That latter point is particularly important, because not only do Apple and Google have control over the apps that appear on their platforms, they also take huge revenue cuts from publishers. That’s a staggering amount of power and income — all of which the EU could make use of.

But… is a European OS even possible?

To find out, I got in touch with several experts. One of them was Jan Stryjak, an associate director at Counterpoint Research. He leads the analyst firm’s research in Europe, and has over 13 years of experience in the telecommunications, media, and tech industries.

The first thing he told me was that there was no space on the market for a new European — or any other, for that matter — mobile operating system. “Two is enough,” he says, referring to iOS and Android. There were attempts in the past to make Windows a third dominant mobile OS, but these failed. While Windows Mobile and Symbian had their days in the sun, Android and iOS edged both out.

“It doesn’t work,” Stryjak tells me about the possibility of another operating system joining Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems. Well, there goes that dream.

When I pressed Stryjak further on the chances for such a thing, the only potential he saw was something for “the really niche tech population who care about privacy.”

Let’s talk about the third option

This topic of privacy is something I discussed with Wayne Huang, VP of Product Operations at Fairphone. His company creates devices that aim to be sustainable and climate neutral, with the goal of making repairable devices that give power back to the consumer.

One of Fairphone’s core customer segments is precisely the tech niche that cares about privacy. When I asked him how this option was expressed on their devices, Huang pointed me towards Fairphone’s partnership with the /e/ Foundation, specifically its Linux-based /e/OS mobile operating system.

The innards of a Fairphone, which shows how easily repairable the components can be. — In 2020, /e/OS was chosen as an alternative operating system for the Fairphone 3.

Users of Fairphone are able to install the privacy-first /e/OS, which is an open-source operating system that doesn’t track user data. Despite this, Android apps can still be used on the platform and /e/OS will warn you about any built-in trackers they provide.

Huang was unable to give me numbers on how many people use /e/OS on Fairphone devices. The closest figure I found came from Gaël Duval, the creator of the system. In 2021, he claimed there are “between 25,000 and 35,000 users of /e/OS” in total.

For context, there are over a billion iOS users — and that doesn’t include other Apple operating systems.

What we’ve found, then, is a pretty hard ceiling for a privacy-focused mobile OS. Currently, this is a niche option for niche devices. Yes, it could potentially grow and attract a healthy number of users, but this approach is unlikely to challenge the dominance of Android and iOS.

Instead, as Stryjak explained to me, at best, a new OS on mobile devices will likely be similar to Linux on desktop computers: something that attracts a devoted fanbase, but fails to make it into the mainstream.

Ending things there though is boring. We need to run this thought experiment through to its logical conclusion and truly work out what would happen if Europe developed its own mobile operating system.

Time to pretend

Let’s say that several EU member states disregard the above. They think the experts are misguided: there is room for a third major mobile operating system and they should be the ones to make it. What happens then?

Well, one thing’s for certain: it won’t be plain sailing.

“I’ve been on a number of calls with European Commissioners… where they’ve brought up a Linux system and asked if they can create something like this,” Huang tells TNW. “The challenge is that it’s difficult to bring everyone together to work towards this goal.”

Let’s not forget that the EU consists of 27 individual nations, all with different cultures and agendas. Getting countries that are more sceptical about big government and censorship on board with a European operating system will be a hard sell.

Yes, one could argue that it’d help promote the bloc’s focus on digital privacy and holding tech giants to account, but it’s not as if the EU is struggling to make an impact as it is.

But let’s pretend that, somehow, the EU manages to get each nation to agree that a European mobile operating system is actually a fantastic idea. The topic leapfrogs the invasion of Ukraine, sustainability, gas prices, and inflation to become the pressing matter in the European parliament. What then?

The technical tribulations

Stryjak from Counterpoint tells TNW that the first big problem a European mobile operating system would face is how it would isolate the continent from the rest of the planet.

“The world is getting bigger, but closer at the same time,” he tells TNW. For almost every function in modern society, “you need to have interoperability within Europe and other markets.” In other words, software needs to work with other software, or things come tumbling down.

This is the aforementioned Jan Stryjak from Counterpoint Research. — Stryjak has worked in European telecoms for more than 15 years.

If a European mobile OS was created, it’d require an unbelievable amount of work to make it function with existing apps and functionalities across the world.

Let’s think of it this way: would you switch to a phone that didn’t have a native Gmail app? Or Twitter? TikTok? Instagram? It would take an inordinate amount of time just for those companies to port over their software — and they’re some of the best-resourced organisations in the world.

Imagine how long it’d take for smaller businesses to port over all the apps you may need for work or life. It’d be an undertaking of galactic proportions.

Achieving the “same functionality of Samsung and Apple [phones] would take many iterations to get to,” Stryjak continues. And honestly? People aren’t willing to wait that long for software to get good. They want it to work and they want it to work now.

And then we have the political problems

Continuing on this thought experiment, let’s say this magical European mobile OS manages to overcome these development hurdles, and gets every engineer and coder alive to focus on making their software and hardware work perfectly with this new system. What then?

“If there’s a Europe-specific OS, can it operate in Russia or China?” Stryjak asks. The focus of this system would likely be enforcing GDPR and digital privacy, so could it operate in places where those regulations aren’t as stringent?

The answer, likely, is no.

You only need to look at the privacy uproar around HarmonyOS and Huawei’s tribulations with the US to get a feeling for how countries outside of Europe would react to a state-backed operating system. In short, badly.

If the EU somehow managed to get its member states to agree to create a mobile operating system, the likelihood is that it’d end up under-supported, struggling for users, and banned in various countries across the world.

To put that another way, it’d be pretty useless.

But is there any need for a European mobile OS?

Circling back to the crux of the piece, the answer is similar to hardware: no, not really.

The EU has been one of the biggest drivers in the digital privacy push and, although it could do even more if it had control over its own OS, the reality is that it’s already had a huge impact on technological privacy. As long as the bloc contains such a huge and affluent user base, it will continue to hold some sort of sway over Silicon Valley.

In a dream world, a European mobile operating system could improve a lot of things, but in reality? Pointless.

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Dark store clampdowns are the newest headache for rapid grocery delivery in Europe

Ecosystems, Government and policy, Next Featured, Startups and technology / DJ Henderson / March 23, 2023

When Barcelona decided to clamp down on dark stores, it opened a new chapter in the story of rapid grocery delivery. In January, the city’s authorities rolled out new restrictions on buildings used by the likes of Glovo and Getir, which had been relentlessly expanding.

These startups use dark stores as distribution hubs for their speedy deliveries. Couriers zip in and out of the buildings all day to collect goods for customers. The facilities, however, have sparked a backlash in many European cities. Residents are complaining about the noise levels, the gatherings of couriers on the street, and the taking up of urban spaces that the public can’t access.

The criticisms have unleashed a wave of actions against dark kitchens. These restrictions add another obstacle for delivery startups, joining job cuts, consolidation, and a worsening economy.

These issues are changing the fortunes of an industry that surged during the pandemic. Often touting delivery times of 15 or 20 minutes, many companies had sprung up promising groceries to your door at super-fast speeds, even if you only wanted a carton of milk, a loaf of bread, or a six-pack of beers.

The crucial tools in making this possible are dark stores or mini fulfilment warehouses dotted around a city in strategic locations close to densely populated areas. To reach mass scale, you need a lot of the facilities to cover a city’s key markets.

Therein lies the crux of the dispute with city officials — and more authorities are starting to take action.

‘Strict’ rules

Glovo, the Barcelona-based delivery giant, is at the coalface of this changing landscape for rapid delivery.

The company, which started by delivering food from restaurants, has invested heavily in the grocery segment in recent years. The company has also partnered with real estate firm Stoneweg to source property to serve as dark stores. It now has 100 dark stores, or micro fulfilment centres (MFCs), across multiple countries.

Glovo cofounder Sacha Michaud told TNW that the new rules in Barcelona are the most stringent that the company has seen to date.

“Our position on this is that it’s quite a strict way of trying to deal with the problem that many other cities haven’t taken,” he said.

“If you have a neighbourhood and somebody wants to set up a restaurant underneath your block of flats, probably the neighbours are not too keen on that. They’re going to have a lot of people walking in and a lot more movement, but it doesn’t mean you have to abolish restaurants in our cities.”

Glovo cofounder Sacha Michaud — Michaud cofounded Glovo in 2015. Five years later, the pandemic arrived to transform his business.

Michaud said Glovo is examining the new requirements in Barcelona and will comply with the standards rather than shut its dark stores down.

Under the new rules, companies can refurbish their dark stores to additionally serve as walk-in retail or dining premises. They can also create a space on-site for couriers to wait, which addresses the issue of crowds gathering outside on the street.

A spokesperson for Barcelona City Council told TNW that companies have a two-year window to comply.

New permits

The backlash has been brewing for a while. Last year, Amsterdam and Rotterdam made similar moves to rein in the spread of dark stores.

The Dutch capital now requires delivery centres to have a specific permit to operate, which gives officials oversight on how many are in operation and where.

The permit rule arose after complaints from residents. Given that dark stores are a new phenomenon, existing zoning laws had to be re-jigged to address the challenges. About 30 dark stores in the city will need to comply with the new rules.

“We’re open to discussions with all relevant parties and stakeholders.

Flink, the Doordash-backed start-up, operates in the Netherlands. A spokesperson said the company was the first of its kind to secure a permit in Amsterdam for a new store. It also has a second application pending.

“In consultation with this municipality, Flink has opted for stores with a ‘business’ destination in the zoning plan, close to residents. The city district chairman inaugurated the first location,” the spokesperson said.

While Flink said its new location is “close” to residents, dark stores cannot be located in the middle of a residential area, as ordered by local authorities.

Flink is also in the midst of a dark store debate in France. In Nantes, the company is under pressure to move one of its centres away from a residential area, following complaints from residents.

“We can’t confirm a move so far in Nantes but are of course open to discuss with all relevant parties and stakeholders,” Flink said.

Shifting markets

The landscape for rapid grocery delivery has changed drastically in just a few months.

Venture capital firms have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the sector’s startups, many of them just recently founded, in a land grab for the emerging market. But questions abound about the economics of 15-minute delivery — especially in a post-lockdown world and with the rising cost of living — and what the path to profitability looks like.

Several thriving companies had emerged during the boom. Their rapid rise was typified by Berlin’s Gorillas, which was founded in 2020 and has raised more than €1 billion. The company quickly became the face of the burgeoning industry in Europe, while also expanding into the US.

The progress, however, came to a screeching halt after market conditions swerved — leading to hundreds of job cuts and exits from a number of markets. Last year, Gorillas was acquired for $1.2 billion by Getir, an eight-year-old Turkish company in the sector.

Getir had also been quick to expand in 2020 and 2021, scooping up its own share of the market across Europe, and snapping up British rival Weezy. These deals have put Getir in a prevalent position in several markets across Europe, where the competition has shrunk. Getir declined to provide a comment for this story.

Time to focus

Consolidation has been rife across the sector. In 2021, Fancy and Dija, two British newcomers, were both bought by the US leader GoPuff. The next year, France’s Cajoo was acquired by German upstart Flink, while Jokr, a New York-based startup, pulled out of Europe after just six months in operation.

Amid this environment, other companies have recalibrated, often by tightening their belts and narrowing their focus on key markets, abandoning the expand-at-all-costs mindset.

Zapp, the British player founded in 2020, made these types of adjustments after pulling out of international markets and shedding jobs. The company’s senior vice president of strategy, Steve O’Hear, said Zapp is concentrating on owning the London market for now.

“Zapp has always been focused on winning London as its primary market, where we’re seeing tremendous success, having more than doubled the business in the last six months alone,” O’Hear said, adding that the company will look to expand in “similar megacities” in the future.

Steve O'Hear, Senior Vice President at Zapp — Prior to joining Zapp, O’Hear spent over 15 years as a tech and business journalist.

Like many of its peers, Zapp’s target is now aimed at reaching profitability in an industry that looks very different today than it did just two years ago.

Glovo’s Michaud said that despite the challenges, there is still growth ahead for the broader food and grocery delivery industry. However, the sector is now contending with another problem: rising costs.

From inflation to surging energy prices, the cost-of-living crisis in Europe is hitting people hard. Inflation also means a higher cost of groceries and less discretionary spending by consumers.

“If they have less money in their pocket, they’re going to spend less and that’s a fact. We might grow a little slower than we were growing before,” Michaud said.

“Consumer slowdown is happening. We have 150,000 retail partners worldwide, 90% of those are SMEs and they’re feeling the pain of consumer slowdown.”

Dark store clampdowns are the newest headache for rapid grocery delivery in Europe Read More »

Big Tech gives EU access to thousands of user accounts each year

Data and security, Government and policy, Next Featured / DJ Henderson / March 21, 2023

Most of us share huge amounts of personal information online, and Big Tech companies are in many ways the gatekeepers of this data. But how much do they share with the authorities? And how often do governments request user data?

According to new research by VPN provider SurfShark, the answer is a lot, and a lot again.

As detailed in SurfShark’s new report which analysed user data requests that Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft received from government agencies of 177 countries between 2013 and 2021, Tech giants get a lot of requests for user data, and the majority of the time, they comply.

Of the four Big Tech companies studied, Apple was the most forthcoming, complying with 82% of requests for user data, compared to Meta (72%), Google (71%), and Microsoft (68%). Interestingly, Big Tech was more compliant in the UK than when compared to global figures, disclosing user data 81.6% of the time.

The report shows that the US and Europe make the most requests for user data, making up 60% of all cases between 2013 and 2021. Germany came in second globally after the US, with 648 requests made per 100k people. The UK government stands at fourth place, requesting seven times more user data from Big Tech companies than the global average. Looking at the top 10, five countries are from the EU, with the US, Singapore, the UK, Australia, and Taiwan comprising the rest.

Governments are requesting this information more and more, presumably in response to the spike in online crime in recent years: the number of accounts requested more than quadrupled from 2013 to 2021, totalling 6.6 million. This data is often used to aid criminal investigations, but it can also help settle civil or administrative cases where digital evidence is needed. This can include specific user information, from IP addresses to locations of devices.

Governments are requesting user data more and more each year. Credit: Surfshark

Besides requesting data from technology companies, authorities are now exploring more ways to monitor and tackle crime through online services, says Gabriele Kaveckyte, Privacy Counsel at Surfshark.

Last year, the EU proposed a regulation that would require internet service providers to detect, report, and remove abuse-related content. While a noteworthy cause, some expressed concerns that the new laws would undermine end-to-end encryption and, hence, user privacy.

“On one hand, introducing such new measures could help solve serious criminal cases, but civil society organisations expressed their concerns of encouraging surveillance techniques which may later be used, for example, to track down political rivals,” says Kaveckyte.

Over the past few years, Big Tech has engaged in a tit for tat between each other and the authorities over the confidentiality of data. Fears of state surveillance prevail, as do doubts over tech companies’ ability to keep data safe – especially in light of a number of high profile leaks.

Big Tech gives EU access to thousands of user accounts each year Read More »

nato-picks-netherlands-for-hq-of-new-e1b-innovation-fund

NATO picks Netherlands for HQ of new €1B innovation fund

Deep tech, Government and policy, Next Featured / Shannon Garcia / March 21, 2023

Story by

Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili (show all) Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.

The Netherlands has been selected as the headquarters of NATO’s Innovation Fund (NIF) in a decision disclosed on Monday. First announced at the organisation’s 2022 Madrid Summit, the fund will invest €1 billion on behalf of NATO member countries over the next 15 years.

NIF is a multi-sovereign venture capital fund that will focus on investing in early-stage startups and other VC funds developing (dual-use) emerging and disruptive technologies — to be used in military and defense applications. These include: artificial intelligence; big-data processing; quantum technologies; autonomy; biotechnology and human enhancement; novel materials; energy; propulsion and space.

“This will allow NATO to tap into the innovation ecosystem for the benefits of our security and defense,” David van Weel, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, said in a statement. The board’s decision to base NIF’s investment management arm in the Netherlands “marks an important milestone in setting up this historic fund,” he added.

A significant advantage of the Netherlands over other bidders is that the country’s financial market regulator (AFM) has a relatively fast admissions process, the Financieele Dagblad reports, citing NATO sources. And according to the same sources, Amsterdam seems to be the preferred location for NIF’s headquarters, although no final decision has been made.

The Dutch government welcomed the establishment of the fund in the Netherlands, which is expected to “increase the possibility for innovative Dutch startups to gain access to capital.”

“In this way, we are strengthening what our country is good at, namely working on solutions for the future,” Micky Adriaansens, Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, said.

As per Minister of Defence Kajsa Ollongren,”More investment in high-tech is urgently needed. For example, we are working with our NATO allies to defend against new threats. That is also why the Netherlands has already decided to substantially increase the budget for research, technology and innovation.” Accordingly, the Netherlands has pledged to contribute more than €55 million in the 15-year period.

The fund will be officially launched at NATO’s next summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.

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Rolls-Royce secures UK backing to build nuclear reactor on the Moon

Corporates and innovation, Government and policy, Next Featured, Startups and technology, Sustainability / DJ Henderson / March 21, 2023

Future astronauts living and working on the Moon will require robust technologies that store and deliver continuous, reliable energy.

But with no wind, no combustible fuels, no water (as far as we know), and two weeks of darkness at a time —the Moon isn’t exactly the best place to set up a solar or wind farm.

British aerospace company Rolls-Royce believes it has a solution to this conundrum: nuclear micro-reactors.

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) seems to agree. It announced last week £2.9m of funding for Rolls-Royce’s lunar micro-reactor project. This follows a £249,000 study funded by the agency last year.

With the fresh funds, the company hopes to have a modular micro-reactor demonstration model ready to deliver to the Moon by 2029.

“All space missions depend on a power source, to support systems for communications, life-support and science experiments,” said the UK Space Agency in a press release on Friday.

“Solar power would seem an obvious choice but the Moon’s rotation results in a two-week day followed by a fortnight of darkness or night time,” Dhara Patel, space expert at the National Space Centre in Leicester, England, told CNBC.

A nuclear reactor, on the other hand, could enable “continuous power regardless of location, available sunlight, and other environmental conditions,” said the UKSA. This could “dramatically increase” the duration of future lunar missions and their scientific value, and provide a source of always-on, clean power, it added.

Scientists and engineers at Rolls-Royce will collaborate with a number of organisations to deliver the demonstrator, including the University of Oxford, the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and Nuclear AMRC.

The project is part of Rolls-Royce’s £500m small modular reactor (SMR) programme, which received £210m in government backing last year, and aims to build, scale, and rollout the technology across the UK, and beyond.

These reactors would be compact, modular and factory-built, producing far less energy than typical nuclear plants but at a fraction of the cost, proponents say.

“Space exploration is the ultimate laboratory for technologies we need on Earth.

Rolls-Royce expects to complete its first Earth-based unit in the early 2030s and build up to ten by 2035, with four potential sites in the UK already earmarked. Once up and running, each reactor is expected to produce more than 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to power at least 400,000 homes.

However, commercial viability is still a long way off. SMRs are not cheap to build and, with material and energy prices spiking, licensed SMR manufacturers are struggling to keep their projects on budget. Earlier this month, Rolls-Royce stated that its current programme funding will run out by the end of 2024, and requested negotiations with the UK government to find fresh investment, Reuters reported.

Last week, the firm was thrown a lifeline when British finance minister Jeremy Hunt announced the launch of a competition to boost investment in SMRs, and funding if the technology proved viable.

While the details of the competition have yet to be revealed, it is thought that about six companies or consortiums will submit bids. The race is likely to pit Rolls-Royce, currently the UK’s frontrunner, against contenders such as London-based startup Newcleo, which recently announced plans to raise €1bn to deploy SMRs across the UK, and TerraPower, an American startup backed by Bill Gates that is developing a class of ‘travelling wave reactors.’

While the competition is a step in the right direction, it is still a long shot from the hard cash Rolls-Royce needs to meet its targets. But perhaps the Moon will prove to be an ideal testbed for the scaling of micro-reactors closer to home, and the backing from the UKSA, a springboard to maturation of the technology.

As George Freeman, Minister of State at the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, highlights: “space exploration is the ultimate laboratory for so many of the transformational technologies we need on Earth.”

The UKSA recently made £51m available for UK companies to develop communication and navigation services for missions to the Moon, to allow future astronauts and equipment to communicate, share large amounts of data, and navigate safely across the lunar surface. All these technologies will need a power source, and nuclear energy could hold the key.

Rolls-Royce secures UK backing to build nuclear reactor on the Moon Read More »