Snap, Inc. is building a presence in China despite the fact that its Snapchat app is banned in the country, according to a report from CNN. Snap’s Chinese operation will reportedly focus on Spectacles. The company already assembles the video-recording sunglasses in China, but the new recruits will focus on research and development. Job applications were spotted on WeChat by the Chinese tech news website NetEase. The job description requires potential hires to have at least three years of experience, and Snap is particularly interested in engineers who’ve worked at well-known Chinese tech companies such as Tencent, Baidu, or Alibaba.

China represents a lucrative market for many technology companies, given that it boasts the world’s biggest population and highest number of internet users. However, heavy censorship rules have made it extremely difficult for some US tech companies to establish a strong presence in China. Apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter are all blocked and access is only possible through roundabout solutions like VPNs.

Snap is offering its China hires a possible transfer to its US headquarters as well as stock options. Despite Snapchat’s ban in China, the company has drawn interest from local technology companies. Alibaba was reported to have invested $200 million in 2015, and Tencent was believed to have been part of its $60 million fundraising round in 2013.

It’s been a big year for Snap. The company released its first hardware product with Spectacles and followed that up by filing for its initial public offering, reportedly aiming to raise up to $4 billion with the IPO expected to come as early as March.

SOURCE: CNN, Los Angeles Times

Amino wants to be the go-to place for your interest — whether that’s paranormal activities, motorcycles, or Harry Potter. The startup’s broad goal — create communities around topics — is very similar to Reddit, but its execution is aimed at mobile natives. Reddit was built in the desktop era and only recently launched a fairly bare-bones mobile app. Amino believes it can capture a younger generation.

The startup announced today that it has raised $19.2 million in Series B funding. It’s planning to use that cash for international expansion, adding new languages, hiring regional staffers, and curating communities tailored to specific countries. It also has its eye on ways it might monetize, and new features optimized for mobile-native demographics who don’t like to use Facebook or desktop computers.

Until the summer of 2016, Amino used to be a network of standalone apps, totaling about 4 million users and about 90 communities. But they soon realized that it wasn’t the fastest way to grow. “We realized pretty quickly that we had become the bottleneck,” remarks Ben Anderson, Amino’s CEO and co-founder. “Managing 90 communities is really challenging because you have to have a lot of domain knowledge and understanding of the topic in order to be a good manager in that community.”

So Anderson and his team opted to create one master app, Amino and handed the community creation responsibility to its users. The Amino creator and manager lets the users build a group, appoint leaders, and manage members. They can then apply to be a “listed” community, which essentially means Amino’s stamp of approval. The Amino team then rejects or approves their request based on criteria like membership numbers and volume of content.

Since the launch, the number of communities has increased from 90 to more than 250,000, with versions now available in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. Niche fandom groups like K-pop, Anime, Pokémon Go, and Minecraft make up a large chunk of the communities in the app, but you will also find groups titled “science and technology,” where scientists have debates about the constellations, or “school life can be tough,” where students console each other about receiving a bad grade and send supportive messages about studying for finals.

The vibe in the app is like an old-school chatroom meets Reddit with some Tumblr posts thrown in — but specifically for mobile. “I’m a firm believer in things that are built from the ground up to be mobile,” says M.G. Siegler, a partner at GV who invested in Amino during its seed round and also led the Series B round. “There’s a lot of talks of mobile slowing down in terms of sales, but the reality is, it’s still growing.”

Siegler expects that with Amino’s growing popularity, more and more newcomers will try to enter the market. But he isn’t worried about how Amino will fare. “I think that’s a healthy thing. If you look back at all the successful product that we see, they basically have all have some level of competition that pushes them.” A potential competitor might be Korean-based BAND, though judging by their marketing materials, their targeted demographic seems to skew a little older than Amino’s.

Anderson does want to broaden his reach beyond mobile-obsessed teenagers though, saying that his ultimate goal is for people to turn to Amino for “anything you can possibly do that’s related to your interest.” The company is still in the pre-revenue stage, but Anderson expects that the app will make money in the future through a combination of selling digital goods, advertisement, and having an e-commerce store.

Anderson is also adamant that Amino will not suffer the same fate as the Yik Yaks and Yos of the app world, saying that people’s interests and passions will never go away. “So as long as we can keep up with the technology and be on the platforms that people want to be on, and have the best experience for your interests and passion, I think that this is a very long-term plan.”

Verizon is beginning its $300 million FiOS rollout in the Boston area, eight months after it announced that it was building a fiber optic platform. The rollout is expected to take place over the next six years and the company has already installed more than 160 miles of fiber optic wiring.

In a statement, Verizon’s consumer landline business lead Ken Dixon said FiOS service will be offered to more than 25,000 addresses by the end of December. Rollouts will start in Dudley Square Innovation District and expansion will continue street-by-street in Roxbury, Dorchester, Roslindale, and West Roxbury.

Verizon put on an optimistic front, calling residents “the winners” of its FiOS launch and its partnership with the City of Boston. Based on Verizon’s past FiOS launch, however, there are good grounds to be skeptical of the actual benefits Boston residents will reap. In 2008, Verizon partnered with New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT), promising all New York City residents access to fiber by the summer of 2014. What eventuated was a disagreement between DOITT and Verizon over the terms of Verizon’s obligations, when an audit conducted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and DOITT revealed that there were over 40,000 unfulfilled FiOS requests.

In October 2015, 13 Northeastern mayors (including New York) wrote a letter to Verizon’s CEO, Lowell McAdam, criticizing Verizon’s slow FiOS build out, and its “failure to meet contractual or legislative deadlines to make fiber optic cable service available.” The company responded by saying, “In all areas where Verizon has franchises and agreed to deploy FiOS, we have met or surpassed our deployment obligations.”

According to the Boston Herald, the City of Boston has approved Verizon’s application for a cable license, which allows Verizon to sell and market FiOS.

Update 3:56PM ET 12/7: Clarified that Verizon was awarded its cable license by the City of Boston.

BMW’s car-sharing service ReachNow is expanding beyond the West Coast. After launching in Seattle in April this year, the service broadened its presence to Portland in August, and today announced the addition of an initial 250-car fleet in Brooklyn, New York. Among the fleet will be BMW 3 Series and the Mini Clubman.

ReachNow’s announcement means more competition to Daimler’s Car2Go and Avis’ Zipcar, both of which have an established presence in New York. The three services are similar in operation. Potential users register as “members,” which enables them to find and book cars through an app that indicates available cars within a certain vicinity. Upon return, users can park the car at any legal parking spaces.

BMW says ReachNow cars can be parked at “metered spaces within a city’s designated Home Area.” In Brooklyn, that area spans north to Greenpoint and Williamsburg, south to Sunset Park, and east to include portions of Borough Park, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick.

To become a member, users are required to pay a $39 one-off registration fee. ReachNow users are typically charged a rate of 49 cents per minute when driving, and 30 cents per minute when parking.

The launch and expansion of ReachNow capitalizes on the declining trend of private car ownership, and a rising demand for versatile and convenient experiences. Other notable car-sharing platforms that have launched this year include GM’s Maven and Ford’s GoDrive. Tesla also has ambitions for its own car-sharing service and Toyota has shown signs of entering the crowded market by recently launching its Smart Key Box device, which allows users to unlock a car and start the engine with a code sent to their smartphone.

When ReachNow launched in Seattle, Daimler issued a statement that echoes the competitive sentiment of the car-sharing market. “One-way carsharing is a complex business to operate, and any new competitor will have a significant learning curve to contend with,” a spokesperson for Daimler said. However, the company also went on to say that “the more mass transit, carsharing and ridesharing options people have to get around,” the better people’s quality of life will be because there will be less traffic and congestion.

In addition to ReachNow’s presence in Brooklyn, the company also announced a series of pilot programs that will take place in the next month or so. These programs include Ride, a service where members can order a driver or schedule individual and recurring rides, and Reserve, where members who wish to use a vehicle for multi-day trips can schedule the car to be delivered at a time and location that’s most convenient.