The Tech Landscape #108
In Buddhism the number of possible feelings is said to be calculated by multiplying the six senses (smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, consciousness) by three reactions (pain, pleasure, neutral) by two stimuli (internal, external) by three temporal states (past, present, future) to give a total of 108.
A few weeks ago I asked what readers thought about the balance of stories that I include here, based on my criteria of what I think’s interesting. Only one person replied, and they said they thought it was fine, so I’m carrying on as I was.
Messaging
Japanese messaging app Line announced some new features at its annual conference, including a credit rating that rewards good behaviour, an automated booking service (like Google’s Duplex), Mini Apps (like those of WeChat), and a premium stickers subscription. Asian messaging apps are much better at diversifying revenue than their Western (American) counterparts.
theverge.com/2019/6/27/18760928/line-conference-2019-score-sticker-vision-mini-app-tokyo
Shopify announced support for Apple Business Messaging, letting customers contact more than 800k retailers using Apple’s Messages app.
news.shopify.com/connect-with-your-customers-on-apple-business-chat-through-shopify-ping#
Google is experimenting with bringing Snapchat-style Lens effects into its messaging app, Messages. It’s part of its push to keep the app relevant, along with bringing RCS support.
xda-developers.com/google-android-messages-instagram-style-effects/
Quartz Brief, the conversational news app, will shut down next month. The app had an engaged but small audience.
digiday.com/media/quartz-is-shutting-down-its-quartz-brief-mobile-app-july-1/
Assistants & Voice
Amazon announced new Alexa Mobile Accessory features for hardware makers which include Alexa in their products. New features include location awareness (this is a big deal, IMO), streaming media, and built-in wake words for launching Alexa hands-free.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/f4bd0b42-49d6-43cd-96be-20356b94ac22/announcing-expanded-alexa-mobile-accessory-features-and-solutions-for-on-the-go-experiences
Amazon is pushing Alexa as a gaming platform with the release of the Alexa Skills GameOn SDK, which lets developers track scores and add leaderboards to screen-based Skills.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/671de3de-0635-4626-9371-e926d7d655d6/skills-gameon-sdk
Samsung launched the Bixby Marketplace, a store for discovering and enabling voice skills (or ‘Capsules’, ugh). A 2018 report gave Bixby a roughly 10% share of the voice assistant market.
voicebot.ai/2019/06/28/samsung-launches-bixby-marketplace-with-participation-by-spotify-npr-and-google-maps/
Advertising
Instagram will start placing ads in Explore; not directly in the grid, but placed in the discovery feed once a user chooses an item to view.
theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759518/instagram-explore-page-ads
Spotify now allows advertisers to target an audience based on the podcasts they listen to. This is only the beginning of its plans for podcasting.
theverge.com/2019/6/17/18681978/spotify-podcast-ad-targeting-launch
Bytedance spent almost $1bn advertising TikTok in 2018, focusing heavily on winning users away from Facebook and Snapchat.
wsj.com/articles/tiktoks-videos-are-goofy-its-strategy-to-dominate-social-media-is-serious-11561780861
Retail
Pinterest is working on Complete The Look, a machine learning powered service which finds complementary products from an image search.
socialmediatoday.com/news/pinterests-working-on-a-new-complete-the-look-option-to-help-users-find/556952/
Boots is opening a concept store in the centre of London, with an emphasis on health and beauty products, and introducing an Instagram zone for showing off purchases and a YouTube Studio for cosmetics demonstrations. This story’s stretching the tech angle, if I’m honest, but it’s interesting.
theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/26/boots-concept-store-covent-garden-london-youtube-studio-beauty-hall
Transit
Apple has acquired self-driving car firm, Drive.ai. Drive had a fleet of automated cars in use, but the firm ceased operations two weeks ago.
axios.com/apple-buy-driveai-753da17d-60fe-44f9-84ff-1d2d82cd0b81.html
Google Maps will now warn you when buses are late, and when your journeys might be overcrowded.
blog.google/products/maps/grab-seat-and-be-time-new-transit-updates-google-maps/
Everything Else
Vivo announced its first immersive headset, AR Glass. Details are thin at the moment, but it seems it will be tethered to an as-yet-unannounced 5G phone.
theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759404/vivo-ar-glass-announced-mwc-shanghai-2019
Oppo unveiled the world’s first under-screen camera, leading the way to a phone that’s truly full-screen. Although not in a commercial phone yet, it’s expected to be so soon.
theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759380/under-display-selfie-camera-first-oppo-announcement
You can now share GIFs directly from Google Image Search results. Which is nice.
blog.google/products/search/gif-ing-you-way-say-lol-haha-or-jajaja-google-images/
Google has released developer documentation for its mysterious Fuchsia operating system, rumoured to be a replacement for both Android and Chrome OS.
androidpolice.com/2019/06/29/official-fuchsia-developer-site-goes-live/
Sidewalk Labs, the Alphabet subsidiary, released its long-awaited plan for the Waterfront Toronto smart city. As well as public WiFi and data collection, the plan includes housing, transport, and a new Google HQ.
theverge.com/2019/6/24/18715486/alphabet-sidewalk-labs-toronto-high-tech-city-within-a-city-plan