A startup called StorePower wants to take a bite out of the grocery delivery business by giving supermarkets an alternative to working with courier marketplaces like Instacart, Postmates, Amazon Fresh or Google Express. The company has raised an undisclosed amount of early-stage funding from Exigent Capital and individual angels, according to co-founder and CEO Richard Demb.
StorePower’s technology helps grocery stores of any size take orders from customers and arrange for in-store pickup or delivery. Customers can order by text message if they so choose, which alleviates the burden of stores asking them to download yet another app. With features like indoor mapping and multi-order picking, the platform also helps grocery stores manage the packing and prepping of customers’ orders.
Shoppers preparing an order in a store can bypass checkout. By contrast, companies like Instacart and Postmates usually require their personal shoppers to go through a checkout line or dedicated express lane.
According to Demb, the company was inspired by Abe’s Market , his earlier startup, a high-end online grocery and a kind of spiritual predecessor to businesses like Thrive Market or GrubMarket. Grocery chains consistently reached out to Demb, he says, asking to use the company’s e-commerce platform as a white label solution to reach shoppers online.
Rather than pivot, Demb and his co-founders sold Abe’s to build a new, software-as-a-service offering for the industry. Terms of the sale of Abe’s were not disclosed, but investors in that earlier business have a stake in StorePower, the CEO confirmed.
So far, Chicago- and Jerusalem-based StorePower has attracted clients like New York City’s Fairway Market and Gelson’s in Los Angeles, Demb says, along with four other chains that the company did not yet have permission to name.
“Supermarket brands have spent generations building trust with consumers, and should be engaging with the online customer, not handing that relationship to a third-party app never to win it back,” Demb tells TechCrunch. “Target, Toys-R-Us and Borders let Amazon host their e-commerce in the mid-2000s and never fully recovered.” StorePower gives grocery chains a choice of paying a monthly fee per-location for its software, or paying a share of revenue for orders processed through the platform.
StorePower intends to focus on the U. S. market, initially, even though the startup has fielded inquiries from European supermarket chains already, Demb says. It’s not surprising that companies want to own the U. S. where grocery deliveries are concerned. According to Morgan Stanley research , domestic spending on groceries reaches $675 billion annually. Groceries sold online represent about 6 percent of the total market, and are expected to grow even beyond that in 2017.

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An enthusiastic Tesla driver last week decided to test out his vehicle’s keyless driving feature. The system, which allows you to unlock the car and start its ignition using the Model S smartphone app, is designed to allow drivers to access their car and drive it away even if they don’t have the key on hand.
The unfortunate driver, who lives near Las Vegas, took his wife and two dogs for a drive out into the desert toward Red Rock Canyon to test the feature, and about six miles from home decided it was time to turn the car around and head home.
However, during the turnaround, he made the mistake of getting out of the car to adjust his dogs’ bed, killing the engine in the process. He soon realised his mistake, however, because his smartphone no longer had any signal, meaning that he couldn’t start the car, or even unlock it.
The Tesla system which controls remote unlocking and keyless starting relies on the company’s smartphone app. It connects back to Tesla’s servers to issue commands, and likewise, the car needs data service itself to receive commands from those same servers to unlock or start, so needing to start the car with no phone signal, the driver really was up a creek (or a canyon in this case) without a paddle.
The driver posted the mishap on Instagram with the above image, explaining that eventually in order to get the car started, his wife had ran 2 miles to get phone signal:
He goes on to explain in the post that he won’t be driving the car in the future without the key that in his own words «will always be with me (now) when I drive that car».
In more positive news for Tesla, one of its vehicles recently preempted a crash whilst driving in autopilot mode, attracting praise from both the technology and motoring communities.
Source: The Telegraph | Image: Instagram

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Nintendo officially started its Switch campaign late last week when it revealed that the console would be available on March 3 for $299.99. Although several retailers in the United States were offering the ability to pre-order, it appears now that it has «sold out».
Less than a week after appearing on sites like Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, and more — listings for both variants of the Nintendo Switch console are either «not available» or «coming soon» or, on some websites, lead to an error page. But don’t let the «coming soon» fool you as these sites previously did have them available for pre-order.
While these sites could replenish stock in the future, they will most likely remain out of stock in the short term, leaving many who have not pre-ordered to brave the fierce lines that could manifest on release day.
You can find out more about the Switch in our recent coverage here , including a list of all the games so far confirmed for the new console.

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The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has announced that all app stores operating in the country must register themselves with the agency. The move comes as the country tries to tackle high levels of malware on mobile devices. The CAC also said that the register will stifle the spread of “illegal information”.
As anyone who has ever purchased an Android phone in mainland China will know, Android devices are lacking the Google Play Store. While native companies such as Baidu , Tencent, and Xiaomi all offer their own stores, there is a slew of less reputable stores which make the spread of malware quite easy, Cheetah Mobile Security said that 1.4 million Chinese users’ devices have been hit by malware as of January 2016.
In its statement, the CAC said that in order to “promote the healthy and orderly development of the [app store industry]” it had launched the app store filing mechanism. App stores will have to register when they open, they’ll need to apply for any changes to the record, and they’ll also need to apply to cancel themselves from the register should the store cease to operate.
The move to regulate app stores in the name of a healthy internet environment comes just a few weeks after Chinese authorities issued a report and draft regulation on child-lock apps being pre-installed on devices. In addition, the proposed regulation included curfews for under-18s who would be banned from playing online games between midnight and 8 AM. The public has been invited to comment and give its feedback on the draft law via a government website.
Source: Cyberspace Administration of China via Network World

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Ricardo Fiel, Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft, gave a presentation at the Scrum Gathering Portugal 2016 on some common ground he has found when collaborating with several types of organizations and about the lessons he has learned on his way while trying to leverage teams’ environment.
Fiel mentioned Tony Robbins, an author and speaker and his Ted Talk “Why We Do What We Do?” to explain not only the six human needs — certainty, variety, significance, connection / love, growth and contribution — but also our two primary fears as human beings:
He also presented the pyramid of the five dysfunctions of a team from Patrick Lencioni to get in some more detail on the things one should avoid when fighting for an healthy workspace and team environment.
Based on the former, he considers that an ideal team environment should comply with the following: safety first, extreme autonomy, focused on growth, transparency and fun. To achieve an environment as described, the lessons shared by Fiel were:
InfoQ talked to Fiel to get into some more detail on the approached topics:
InfoQ: Your lessons learned are mostly focused on people. What about technology, office conditions and other perks? Are these of less importance when creating an ideal team environment?
Fiel: People and culture come first. Smart people in a room with no light will always perform at higher standards than mediocre people in an amazing office, so perks are a nice to have, of course, but not mandatory. Same for processes and tools. Outstanding teams focus on solving problems in elegant ways, even if the tooling is not perfect. I do believe, however, that teams should always have the best tools available.
InfoQ: You’ve identified a set of characteristics for an ideal team environment. Does the organisation’s size impact the individual relevance of each one?
Fiel: Yes, it does. Based on my experience, communication increasingly becomes a challenge. And sometimes, it’s the actual team members that don’t want to be involved in a few topics. Ricardo Semler, in his astonishing «Maverick» book, breaks a company into 2 whenever it reaches around 40 people.
InfoQ: Performance reviews, bonus and career progressing are a typical concern of the employees. Can you detail what you’re proposing here?
Fiel: I have yet to see a performance review that has actual impact on the team, except for salary and bonuses. I’ve seen great attempts to have 360 feedback among all team members, only to realize people were not fully transparent on their reviews. The best teams I’ve seen gather around once a month or quarter to give honest feedback to each other, in an emotionally safe environment. I tried this and the results, in terms of actionable steps for everyone, were far better than performance reviews. Usually it lasts half a day, and it’s a good investment.
InfoQ: Last question, what do you think about celebration of success (and failure) and its importance in the context of a team environment?
Fiel: By all means, do it. Celebrate minor wins and learn from failures. Also, let the team schedule their own events outside work, like surf days, football, dinners, whatever. It makes wonders for team morale. As for office space, the teams should arrange as they wish, placing whatever makes them feel like home in the walls. I’ve seen teams sticking toys on walls whenever a milestone is reached or something really good happens. Encourage this behavior. It’s their space.
The full presentation is available here .

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