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Facing increasing scrutiny from international and domestic regulators, the Altria Group has decided to write down its investment into the e-cigarette company JUUL by $4.5 billion. That’s roughly one-third of the $12.8 billion that the tobacco giant had invested into JUUL a little less than one year ago. Juul Labs gets $12.8 billion investment from Marlboro maker Altria Group What a difference a year has made. JUUL, which has become synonymous with the vaping phenomenon that has swept the U.S., was once hailed as being at the forefront of a wave of companies that were making smoking obsolete and nicotine consumption safer for consumers. Vaporization Startup Pax Labs Introduces Juul, Its Next-Gen E-Cigarette The company began running into problems as its popularity increased exponentially (in part by allegedly turning to some of the same tactics big tobacco used to target underage consumers ). As the complaints began to roll in, and as JUUL was held responsible fo

Paidy , a Japanese financial tech startup that provides instant credit to consumers in Japan, announced today that it has raised a total of $143 million in new financing. This includes a $83 million Series C extension from investors including PayPal Ventures and debt financing of $60 million. The funding will be used to advance Paidy’s goals of signing large-scale merchants, offering new financial services and growing its user base to 11 million accounts by the end of 2020. In addition to PayPal Ventures, investors in the Series C extension also include Soros Capital Management, JS Capital Management and Tybourne Capital Management, along with another undisclosed investor. The debt financing is from Goldman Sachs Japan, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Earlier this month, Paidy and Goldman Sachs Japan established a warehouse facility valued at $52 million. Paidy also established credit facility worth $8 million with the three banks. Th

Album VC , a Lehi, Utah-based early-stage venture firm that’s been known until now as Peak Ventures, just gathered up $75 million in capital commitments for its third early-stage fund. The development shows investor confidence in Album’s young team, which came together in 2014 after the founder of Zinch — a site connecting colleges and students that sold to the ed-tech company Chegg in 2011 — decided to try his hand at investing in other startups. As that founder, Sid Krommenhoek — who stayed on with Chegg for several years, running its international efforts — explains it, “I thought I’d do another startup. But I also knew from our own experience in struggling to raise money the need for more capital in Utah, and I thought having that operator-entrepreneur perspective could be useful.” A first fund, like many in the industry, was more of an experiment, though it was a decent $23 million, thanks largely to the support of Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, who was early to commit capital to

A security researcher has found several vulnerabilities in the popular open-source Horde web email software that allow hackers to near-invisibly steal the contents of a victim’s inbox. Horde is one of the most popular free and open-source web email systems available. It’s built and maintained by a core team of developers, with contributions from the wider open-source community. It’s used by universities, libraries, and many web hosting providers as the default email client. Numan Ozdemir disclosed his vulnerabilities to Horde in May. An attacker can scrape and download a victim’s entire inbox by tricking them into clicking a malicious link in an email. Once clicked, the inbox is downloaded to the attacker’s server. But the researcher did not hear back from the Horde community. Security researchers typically give organizations three months to fix flaws before they are publicly disclosed. NIST, the government department that maintains the national vulnerability database, said this

Here’s a horror scenario for you: you’re flying in a small plane and suddenly the single pilot who knows how to fly passes out. In the movies, somebody would probably talk one of the passengers through safely landing the plane. In reality, that’s unlikely. Flying planes is hard. Now, however, planes outfitted with the Garmin G3000 flight deck, will have the option to include a system that will land the plane in an emergency with just the push of a button. Autoland combines all of the navigation and communications tech in the plane and combines that with a sophisticated autopilot. Once a passenger activates the autoland feature — or the plane determines that the pilot is incapacitated — the system will look at all the available information about weather, remaining fuel on board and the local terrain to plot a route to the nearest suitable airport. It’ll even alert air traffic control about what’s happening, so they can route other planes around you. The system also then takes over

At the heart of TechCrunch is our community. We want TechCrunch.com to feel like a home base for founders, investors and anyone who comes to us for breaking news and analysis of major tech giants and startups. That includes engaging with our community. We’re excited to introduce TechCrunch readers to our new commenting system, which is powered by Spot.IM . Some new features you can tap into: Real time comments. You’ll be able to see when someone’s in the process of responding to you or typing a new comment. GIFs! Drop GIFs and images into the comment box. Top commenters. Text styling. Notifications when another user likes or replies to your comment. Community questions. This feature lets our writers pose questions to you directly on an article. Chime in with your ideas! As always, bullying has no place on TechCrunch. This includes but is not limited to harassment based on: Race Ethnicity Gender Gender identity and expression Sexual orientation Disability Physical app

GoPro’s first foray into the 360-degree action was the GoPro Fusion, and while it was a strong first offering, the new GoPro MAX ($499) is a very different – and much improved – immersive action camera that has a lot to offer experienced videographers and voices alike. To be sure, the MAX has trade-offs, but taken together, it presents arguably the best overall combination of features and value for travel and adventure vloggers who don’t want to break the bank or haul a huge amount of kit while they get out and explore. It’s hip to be square The new GoPro MAX’s form factor is both familiar and different for fans of the company’s Hero line. It’s almost like you stacked two Heros on top of each other, with a square box instead of a small rectangle as a result. The design helps accommodate both the dual optics that GoPro uses to achieve its 360-degree capture, as well as the built-in touchscreen display that can be used as a selfie viewfinder, too, when operating in Hero mode. The rug

The beauty of podcasting is that anyone can do it. It’s a rare medium that’s nearly as easy to make as it is to consume. And as such, no two people do it exactly the same way. There are a wealth of hardware and software solutions open to potential podcasters, so setups run the gamut from  NPR  studios to USB Skype rigs. We’ve asked some of our favorite podcast hosts and producers to highlight their workflows — the equipment and software they use to get the job done. The list so far includes: Let’s Talk About Cats’ Mary Phillips-Sandy and Lizzie Jacobs Broken Record’s Justin Richmond Criminal/This Is Love’s Lauren Spohrer Jeffrey Cranor of Welcome to Night Vale Jesse Thorn of Bullseye Ben Lindbergh of Effectively Wild My own podcast, RiYL Some days it can be tough to know what to do with all of those tossed salads and scrambled eggs. Brooklyn-based comedian Anita Flores started a podcast. A Frasier podcast, no less. Each episode of the series examines a piece of everyone’s fa