The Tech Landscape #113 🕵️♀️🕵🏾♂️
The Cannibis Sativa plant contains over 500 pharmacological compounds, of which 113 are unique to the plant, and so known as cannabinoids.
Quite a few stories about privacy this week—governments are getting serious about cracking down on the tech giants.
XR
HTC announced that its Vive Focus Plus standalone VR headset will be able to play PC games streamed from its VivePort service; this is an important step in VR as it means future headsets may not need heavy (and expensive) hardware.
skarredghost.com/2019/08/02/viveport-streaming-vive-focus-pc-games/
Apple has teamed up with New York’s New Museum to create an augmented reality art tour featuring works from six artists, including Nick Cave, who are new to the medium. The tours will take place in London, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
wallpaper.com/art/apple-augmented-reality-art-walk-new-museum
The first version of the OpenXR specification has been released. This is intended to standardise the way that AR & VR platforms and devices operate, making it easier for developers to build interoperable XR experiences.
khronos.org/news/press/khronos-releases-openxr-1.0-specification-establishing-a-foundation-for-the-ar-and-vr-ecosystem
Assistants & Voice
Google Assistant’s Interactive Canvas, for rich interactions on smart display screens, is now generally available.
twitter.com/ActionsOnGoogle/status/1156963832394375168
Google is experimenting with replacing the Voice Search icon in the search box of non-Pixel Android phones with one for Assistant, in an attempt to harmonise their different search interfaces.
9to5google.com/2019/07/26/google-replacing-voice-search/
Polly, Amazon’s synthetic speech service, launched a new neural network text-to-speech service with much more human-like voices. They also announced a US voice with a newsreader style.
aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-polly-introduces-neural-text-to-speech-and-newscaster-style/
Hardware
Google has shown off new details of the Pixel 4, highlighting a new face unlock mechanism and a small radar unit that means the phone can be controlled without touching. This will also be perfect for a future AR headset, which I imagine they’ll announce some time in the next 18 months.
blog.google/products/pixel/new-features-pixel4/
ByteDance, owners of TikTok, are developing their own smartphone.
reuters.com/article/us-china-bytedance-smartphone/chinas-bytedance-after-smartisan-deal-says-developing-smartphone-idUSKCN1UO16W
Privacy
Apple and Google have temporarily suspended the use of human operators in quality-reviewing snippets of voice sent to Siri and Assistant in the face of recent criticism of the practice. Amazon will provide an option allowing users to opt out of human review.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-02/amazon-gives-option-to-disable-human-review-of-alexa-recordings
A European court has found that owners of sites which have a Facebook button are jointly responsible for any data it collects. This ruling will also apply to LinkedIn and Twitter buttons, and means they’ll have to be changed or removed.
techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/europes-top-court-sharpens-guidance-for-sites-using-leaky-social-plug-ins/
Apple has joined the Data Transfer Project, the initiative aimed at making it easier to transfer personal data between platforms and companies including Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
theverge.com/2019/7/30/20746868/apple-data-transfer-project-google-microsoft-twitter
Retail
Amazon has launched a proactive fashion delivery service, Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe. For a $5 per month subscription fee users will receive a monthly box of eight items selected for them, which they have seven days to try on and send back if they don’t want them.
theverge.com/2019/7/31/20748632/amazon-personal-shopper-prime-wardrobe-service-style-subscription-box
Pinterest is adding improved discovery of product catalogues and personalised shopping hubs as it continues to move beyond inspiration and into purchase.
newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/summer-shopping
Games
Google Cloud announced an Alpha release of a Game Servers product, aimed at developers wanting to run multiplayer games. This is laying the ground for their Stadia games service.
digitaltrends.com/gaming/google-cloud-game-servers-alpha-test/
WeChat’s owner Tencent and hardware company Qualcomm announced a strategic partnership that will likely include a 5G gaming device. I’ve said it before: Tencent will move into the West through games, not social.
engadget.com/2019/07/30/qualcomm-tencent-gaming-phone/
Everything Else
European Android users will be offered a choice of search providers when setting up the device; Google will auction the places on the provider choice screen.
blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/update-android-search-providers-europe/
Facebook is releasing tools that help find duplicate images or video, useful for many cases including combatting images of child abuse.
newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/08/open-source-photo-video-matching/
Users requiring emergency services, but who are unable to speak, can now send automated messages containing their location which will be read out to the operator. It will be available on select Android phones in the US.
blog.google/products/android/tap-your-phone-get-help-emergency/