The Daily Crunch 10/04/16 It's Google's day to shine, so let's hope they bring the hardware heat. It's The Daily Crunch for October 4, 2016. And if you wanted to be the one to create the Snapchat for the international market, just FYI your window may be closing. 1. Google Pixel day is upon us Today is the day Google reveals all of its hardware, or at least, that's what we expect. The company is set to debut Pixel phones (leaked so much that it must be happening), with a potential starting price of $649 and release date of October 20. You can watch along as we go live from the event, which should also bring us news of Google's Amazon Echo competitor and a new Chromecast, as well as VR hardware. It's starting when this email hits your inbox, at 9 AM PT or 12 PM ET. 
2. White House looks to borrow some SXSW magic The White House hosted its first South by South Lawn (SXSL) festival today, and on the agenda were social change and advocacy. It sounds like it was actually a much more worthwhile endeavor than SXSW, upon which it was based, which is basically now a giant in-your-face marketing convention. Hopefully it isn't also the last SXSL, though that's probably going to depend on what happens at the polls in November. 3. Rothenberg gets worse Rarely has a VC firm collapsed in such a public and messy manner as Rothenberg Ventures. The mess continues with an employee class action lawsuit filed by a former exec, over lack of payment. It's probably going to get worse before it gets better. 4. Police body cameras are working in at least one respect The Panopticon is nothing if not effective – at least, that's what a new study shows about use of police body cameras. A Cambridge study reveals that complaints about police behavior dropped 93 percent once officers started wearing cameras, as assigned at random – but complaints were down even for officers not using the camera, which means the accountability feelings were "contagious," according to researchers. 5. WhatsApp wants some Snapchat swag, too Facebook's efforts to emulate the features of its most recent rival Snapchat extend to its sub-brands, too; WhatsApp is looking to take what people like about Snapchat in North America and make that part of its product internationally. It's a smart move, given its lead in markets beyond the U.S., and could help it block Snapchat from making progress abroad. 6. iTunes delivers spoken word Spoken Editions is a new offering from iTunes that features content from websites narrated as podcast-style audio files. It's a smart initiative, and TechCrunch is one of the launch partners, which means my typos will be faithfully narrated, too. 7. Amazon nixes comped reviews Amazon has quashed the sketchy practice that saw retailers offering free or discounted products in exchange for reviews on the site. That's probably a good thing, since it basically means we'll see a less incentivized picture of how people feel about stuff they actually buy. | 
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