The Daily Crunch 08/15/16

To space and back, and is our future Fuchsia? All that and more in The Daily Crunch for August 15, 2016. And if you're fertilizer, take comfort in that.

1. SpaceX racks up another successful landing

Elon Musk's SpaceX continues to improve its average: The spacefaring startup landed its sixth first stage rocket successfully, and also successfully launched a commercial communications satellite. The recovery happened at sea, on SpaceX's autonomous barge landing pad, marking the fourth such successful recovery to date. That makes five of six successes in recovering that reusable first rocket stage since April – you got this, Musk.

2. Nokia turns to a former birdkeeper to revive handset biz

It's unlikely much will be quite as exciting as watching Nokia try to rebuild its handset business. The latter-day mobile megapower has been out of the game for a few years, since it had to stay away as part of its deal with Microsoft, which bought its smartphone business. But it's coming back, now that that deal has expired, and it's bringing Pekka Rantala on to do it. Rantala used to be CEO of Angry Birds, stepping in to the role in June 2014 after years as an executive in the food and beverage industry. He's not without relevant experience, however: he spent nearly a decade at Nokia starting in 1994 in various roles. Still, an Angry Birds soda-inspired smartphone does have a certain appeal.

3. What is Google's Fuchsia? (No, it's not just a proprietary color)

I've always wondered what Android would look like if Google got a do-over, with the advantage of hindsight. That might be in the cards, as the company is working on a new OS called Fuchsia which is nimble and light enough to work on IoT devices, but also powerful enough to act as the system layer for smartphones and PCs. It's very early days, and this could just be a side-bet with no real future, but it's an intriguing project that could also be a unifier for a future where everything's connected, all the time.

4. Feel for the fertilizer

Being compared to dung may be small comfort, but TC's Josh Constine thinks it's something startups should feel good about preparing the way for tech's future. He thinks it's time for a major reckoning among companies that got lots of funding and hyper early, but that are now looking at fairly ignoble ends. The cycle continues.

5. How Niantic got to Go

Pokémon Go didn't just emerge from nowhere, though it may seem that way. The story of Niantic Labs goes back before its founding to Niantic CEO's John Hanke MMO aspirations in 1994, before even internet access was really widespread. That's a couple of years before Pokemon even got their first game.

6. Grape thinking

How do you shake up the wine industry? You could start by crowdsourcing wine ideas, and then funding and making the best ones. That's what Naked Wines, does, as TC's Haje Jan Kamps found out in his exploration of their unique business model. The new way to wine also involves a big data play, to help with recommendations and informing choices about what crazy ideas just might become table staples.

7. 50 years of Trekking

Star Trek is 50. Let that sink in. Our own Anthony Ha got to check out celebrations of the moments anniversary at the Star Trek Las Vegas Convention, and he ended up a bigger, more committed Star Trek fan than when he started.