The Tech Landscape #132 šš»
The sum of all two-digit numbers that can be made from 132āthat is, 12, 13, 21, 23, 31, and 32āis 132. Sorry, I couldnāt find one about Christmas.
This may be the last one of these for the year, as I donāt think thereāll be many announcements this week and people probably wonāt be bothered to read them two days before Christmas anyway. To compensate, this weekās edition is huge, probably the biggest Iāve ever sent.
XR
Androidās AR software, ARCore, is getting a major update which lets cameras better measure depth. This allows for new āmixed realityā effects like occlusion, where digital objects are obscured by physical ones.
developers.googleblog.com/2019/12/blending-realities-with-arcore-depth-api.html
The Oculus Quest VR headset will gain a new, experimental, hand-tracking feature this week through a firmware update. This means certain games and experiences may no longer require handheld controllers for interaction.
oculus.com/blog/thumbs-up-hand-tracking-now-available-on-oculus-quest/
Magic Leap is pivoting to enterprise customers, with a rename of its headset to Magic Leap 1 and a new Device Manager tool. Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens already position themselves as business tools, as devices just arenāt consumer-ready yet.
magicleap.com/news/news/manage-all-your-magic-leap-1-devices-apps-and-data-with-device-manager
Qualcomm announced its second-generation XR platform, the XR2. Itās 5G-capable, supports up to 7 cameras, displays up to 3K, and will be used in every XR headset that isnāt made by Apple.
techcrunch.com/2019/12/05/qualcomm-launches-the-xr2-platform-for-5g-connected-ar-and-vr-devices/
AR creation tool Torch can now publish to the web through an integration of 8th Wallās publishing tools. Web AR hugely increases the reach of hand-built AR experiences.
medium.com/8th-wall/new-integration-the-power-of-webar-comes-to-the-torch-app-6891a678fb3
Apps
Google announced the first Pixel Drop, a rollout of new features for Pixel phones. The first drop includes improvements to Photos and Duo, better memory management, and backporting some Pixel 4 features to older phones. Regular Drops make it easier for Google to promote new features compared to the previous steady slow rollouts.
blog.google/products/pixel/more-helpful-pixel-features/
Google announced new features for users in Arabic-speaking markets, including visual search and celebrity video answers, Assistant in 15 new countries, and off-route alerts for taxi journeys.
blog.google/around-the-globe/google-middle-east/making-our-products-more-helpful-arabic/
Assistants & Voice
As part of Googleās first Pixel Drop [see above] the offline, faster New Assistant will come to the UK and other English-speaking territories.
androidpolice.com/2019/12/09/new-google-assistant-pixel-4-english-australia-canada-ireland-singapore-uk/
Alexa can now play podcasts from Apple and Spotify.
theverge.com/2019/12/13/21020492/apple-spotify-alexa-podcasts-amazon-echo-homepod-siri
Citizen has released two new wall clocks that are Alexa-compatible, similar to Amazonās own Echo Wall Clock.
theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/13/21020768/citizen-amazon-echo-alexa-wall-clock-design-style-timer-price
Messaging
Androidās Messages app will clearly indicate messages from verified businesses, and show spam warnings. All part of Googleās plan to make Messages into a better business tool.
blog.google/products/messages/safer-conversations-messages-verified-sms-and-spam-protection/
The US Federal Trade Commission could stop Facebook from integrating its different messaging options, citing competition fears, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
theverge.com/2019/12/12/21013273/ftc-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-whatsapp-messenger-instagram-privacy-interoperability
Social
Pinterest announced a new Trends dashboard for insights into the behaviour of US customers over the past 12 months. Invite-only, for now.
newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/introducing-pinterest-trends-showing-the-power-of-insights-irl
Twitter is funding a small team to explore the idea of making an open, decentralised social media protocol of which Twitter would be a single client. This is very interesting, but at least a few years away from being anything tangible.
twitter.com/jack/status/1204766078468911106
Tencent, owner of Chinese super-app WeChat, is trialling a relaunch of a social app called Pengyou (āFriendsā) to retain users, as WeChat has become very business and transaction focused. This is a similar situation that Facebook is facing on its own properties.
abacusnews.com/china-tech-city/tencent-trials-pengyou-app-again-wechat-becomes-too-work-oriented/article/3041373
Privacy
Google Maps is getting more privacy features, with Incognito Mode coming to iOS and a bulk delete tool for the Timeline.
blog.google/products/maps/updates-incognito-mode-and-your-timeline-maps/
Twitter launched Privacy Center, a new portal which collects and makes clear all its policies and tools for protecting user privacy.
blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/privacy_data_protection.html
Video
Chinese social retail app Xiaohingshu (Little Red Book) has joined the live-streaming shopping trend that I predict will hit the West next year.
jingdaily.com/xiaohongshu-announces-e-commerce-live-streaming/
Facebookās video-calling Portal service got a big update with WhatsApp account login, Workplace video calling, and more AR features.
about.fb.com/news/2019/12/portal-adds-new-content-and-features/
Games
Epic Games is hoping to submit Fortnite to Googleās Play Store, but has been refused an exception on the typical 30% commission on in-game purchases. Android players must currently side-load the game, which leaves phones less secure and limits the number of players.
ww.9to5google.com/2019/12/08/fortnite-android-google-play-store/
Fortnite held its in-game Star Wars promotion, with an exclusive clip from the new film and an appearance by director JJ Abrams.
eurogamer.net/articles/2019-12-14-heres-what-happened-in-fortnites-star-wars-live-event
Riot Games, makers of Chinese phenomenon League of Legends, launched a new label called Riot Forge which will let other developers make games in the LoL universe.
digitaltrends.com/gaming/riot-forge-league-of-legends-games-other-developers/
Opera released GX, āthe worldās first gaming browserā, which allows users to tweak the memory and graphics of the browser to optimise for web-based gaming.
ww.9to5mac.com/2019/12/12/opera-launches-its-opera-gx-gaming-browser-for-macos/
Hardware
Chinese phone maker Oppo announced new products including an AR headset, a smartwatch, and a 5G home hub.
abacusnews.com/china-tech-city/oppo-announces-ar-glasses-and-iot-products/article/3041377
North announced details of its second Focals smartglasses product, which will be lighter and higher-definition. Focals 2.0 will be released next year, and the existing version has been pulled from the market.
blog.bynorth.com/focals-2020/
Everything Else
The Lenovo Smart Clock can now use ringtones generated by machine learning to adapt to external conditions like time and weather. Iād imagine this feature will get rolled out to other Assistant smart devices in the future.
blog.google/products/assistant/new-google-assistant-features-customize-your-alarm-clock/
Google hasnāt given up on Android TV, as itās just released an update to Android 10 and a reference box for developers. You donāt see Android TV around a lot.
android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/12/android-10-on-android-tv.html
Apple has acquired Spectral Edge, a UK startup which uses machine learning to improve image quality.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-12/apple-buys-u-k-startup-to-improve-iphone-picture-taking
TikTok owner, ByteDance, has a new music streaming app called Resso which is currently being trialled in India and Indonesia. Following the Chinese āsocial+ā model, it will have more social features than rivals like Spotify.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-11/tiktok-owner-is-testing-music-app-in-bid-for-next-global-hit
Singaporeās Grab, which began as a ride-hailing service, now makes 50% of its revenue from food delivery and financial services. It probably isnāt a coincidence that Uber recently updated its app to focus more on food delivery and financial services.
scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/3041407/grab-expands-food-and-finance-its-transport-business-no-longer