The Tech Landscape #118 💑
There are 118 known elements, but the periodic table can be extended to 126 to include eight hypothetical elements.
It was the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin last week, where lots of new hardware was announced, so this week’s newsletter is dominated by that.
Assistants & Voice
Google Assistant was highly visible at IFA, and Google made a few announcements about it including WhatsApp voice and video calling on Android phones, a feature to turn new Lenovo tablets into smart displays when docked, and integrations with many new TVs, soundbars, speakers, and headphones.
blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-comes-more-devices-home/
Amazon announced a number of new Fire TV-enabled products at IFA, including a new Fire TV Cube with on-device Alexa control, and several ‘Fire TV Edition’ smart TVs.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/appstore/post/b4e3a681-096d-41bf-aacb-54d80a6c9d74/fire-tv-announces-more-than-20-new-products
Lenovo announced a second edition of its Google Assistant-powered Smart Display, with a smaller 7” screen and redesigned case.
digitaltrends.com/home/lenovo-smart-display-gets-a-redesigned-7-inch-version/
Fossil seems to be one of the few smartwatch companies still keenly attached to WearOS and Google Assistant, no doubt related to Google’s $40m investment earlier this year. At IFA it announced a range of branded watched based on its Gen 5 platform, including from Michael Kors, Armani, Diesel, and Puma.
androidcentral.com/fossil-gen-5-portfolio-impressive-display-smartwatch-diversity
Privacy
The latest release of Firefox turns on third-party tracking script blocking by default, as well as blocking crypto-mining scripts and, optionally, fingerprinting. Firefox is no longer the dominant browser, but still a big chunk of people will become invisible to ad tracking.
blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-blocks-third-party-tracking-cookies-and-cryptomining-by-default/
Google released a tool to make it easy for developers to use differential privacy, a technique that uses mass data while preserving user privacy.
developers.googleblog.com/2019/09/enabling-developers-and-organizations.html
Everything Else
Android 10 was released, with new features including a new gestural interface, system dark theme, and smart replies in notifications. Android releases are less notable than iOS as they tend to add new features all year round through Google Play Services updates.
android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/09/welcoming-android-10.html
Facebook, Microsoft, and a number of universities have partnered to create the Deepfake Detection Challenge, aimed at combating the threat of artificially manipulated videos.
ai.facebook.com/blog/deepfake-detection-challenge/
Google Search will get better at recommending TV and movies, after unveiling a new Tinder-like interfaces for choosing shows you like. US-only, for now.
blog.google/products/search/google-search-what-to-watch/
YouTube launched /Fashion, a new portal for style content.
youtube.googleblog.com/2019/09/welcome-to-youtubecomfashion.html
Facebook is bringing its Dating service to the US, and integrating it more closely with Instagram; users can add photos and Stories to their profile.
newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/09/facebook-dating/
Google teamed up with Yves San Laurent for a backpack with a strap made of its Project Jacquard smart fabric, which allows control of certain phone functions from a touch interface.
theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/9/4/20849788/google-project-jacquard-yves-saint-laurent-smart-backpack-cit-e-bluetooth-fabric-control-price
Lvzhou, or ‘Oasis’, is a new Instagram-alike app from Sina Weibo (“China’s Twitter”). Instagram itself remains banned in China.
radiichina.com/sina-weibo-instagram-clone-oasis/