The Tech Landscape #139 🗺
This is issue 139 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.
The Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome was originally built in 139CE as a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian. It has subsequently been used as a fortress, a prison, a palace, and most recently a museum.
Self-promotion
After my things to watch in 2020 (come on, let me promote it one more time) I’ve put together a collection of the best quotes I read in 2019, 40 finely-turned phrases on technology, humanity, innovation and more.
Technology has become advanced enough to give us the internet but we’re still finding out if society is advanced enough to accept it.
That type of thing.
Top Stories
Scape Technologies, a British startup that aims to build a digital 1:1 map of the world for augmented reality and more, has been acquired by Facebook. If you read my article on things to watch in 2020 (!) you’ll remember that Scape are one of the companies I flagged as working on the ‘mirrorworld’, one of the crucial steps in building the next big platform.
techcrunch.com/2020/02/08/scapebook/
Major Chinese phone makers Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are partnering to make it easier for developers to submit apps to their proprietary app stores. This is widely seen as a move to break Google’s Play Store dominance, although the companies involved deny that.
reuters.com/article/us-china-mobile-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-mobile-giants-to-take-on-googles-play-store-sources-idUSKBN20018H
Assistants & Voice
Amazon announced Brand Voice, a new service for brands to work with its Polly team to create unique synthetic voices. Among the first customers is KFC Canada, which has built a Colonel Sanders voice for its Alexa Skill.
aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/build-a-unique-brand-voice-with-amazon-polly/
Alexa can now scan barcodes to add items to your shopping list. The feature is available on the Echo Show 5 & 8 smart displays. The camera in your home is slowly and quietly becoming more active.
digitaltrends.com/home/you-can-now-scan-barcodes-for-your-grocery-list-with-the-amazon-echo-show/
Google Assistant is now compatible with the Tile Bluetooth tracker, so you can ask, for example, “where are my keys”. A forthcoming iOS version is strongly rumoured to have built-in item tracking, which led to Tile recently making a complaint to a US Congress hearing.
blog.google/products/assistant/ask-google-assistant-find-your-keys-tile/
Messaging
Facebook Messenger launched a new One-Time Notification tool for important follow-up messages. For example, a customer could ask to receive a notification when an item comes back in stock. It’s a small but useful feature.
developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2020/02/04/messenger-launches-one-time-notification-api-enable-businesses-send-important-follow-up-messages/
Facebook announced new parental controls for Messenger Kids, including a log of recent contacts and images sent and received.
about.fb.com/news/2020/02/messenger-kids-controls/
Apps
Apple is preparing to launch universal purchases for apps, meaning developers can offer the option to customers to buy an app through the MacOS App Store and also get it on the iOS App Store, and vice versa. Apple recently announced Catalyst, a system for making it easier to developers to build cross-platform apps.
theverge.com/2020/2/5/21125044/apple-cross-purchases-mac-ios-apps-xcode-beta-software-universal
DEMAND is a new data analytics platform for live music from Google’s Area 120 incubator. It uses data from Google Trends, Play, YouTube, and third-party providers to help artists and promoters set tour schedules and ticket pricing.
blog.google/technology/area-120/demand-where-live-music-meets-data/
Advertising
Facebook Audience Network advertising will no longer work on the mobile web or in-stream video from April. Facebook is concentrating on in-app advertising revenue, which is growing much faster.
facebook.com/help/publisher/645132129564436
Chrome will start blocking ads on videos that show non-skippable pre-rolls, mid-roll ads on videos under eight minutes long, and ads that cover too much of a video. These are the guidelines laid down by the Better Ads Standards, but the move also benefits YouTube.
blog.chromium.org/2020/02/videos-with-fewer-intrusive-ads.html
527 million people use ad-blockers in their mobile browsers, an increase of 64% over the last three years, according to the latest PageFair Adblock report.
cnet.com/news/ad-blocking-takes-off-on-mobile-phones-a-challenge-for-publishers/
Transit
Google Maps turned 15 years old, and gained a redesign and some new public transit features including information on temperature, accessibility, and security.
blog.google/products/maps/maps-15th-birthday/
The next version of iOS has a new feature, called CarKey, which will let people unlock, lock, and start compatible cars with their iPhone.
9to5mac.com/2020/02/05/new-carkey-feature-in-ios-13-4-beta-brings-built-in-support-for-unlocking-driving-and-sharing-nfc-car-keys/
A new automated delivery vehicle, the Nuro R2, has been granted exemption of federal safety requirement by the US government—making it the first fully autonomous vehicle allowed on US roads.
theverge.com/2020/2/6/21125358/nuro-self-driving-delivery-robot-r2-fmvss-exemption
Stats
Google’s free products create €420bn of value for European businesses, according to an independent report commissioned by Google, who are having many problems with European regulators lately.
blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/helping-europeans-succeed-googles-impact-in-europe/
YouTube made £11.6bn in revenue last year, some 10% of Google’s total. It’s the first time the figure has been made public.
theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019
Spotify says 16% of its users listen to podcasts, and that podcast listening has grown 200% year-on-year.
theverge.com/2020/2/5/21123905/spotify-earnings-q4-2020-podcasting-investment-operating-loss
Everything Else
NVIDIA launched GeForce Now, its cloud gaming service. Unlike Google’s Stadia, it works with many existing PC games.
blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/02/04/geforce-now-pc-gaming/
Twitter announced a new set of rules to combat the spread of altered media on its platform. Media could be flagged as manipulated or even removed if its considered to be shared deceptively with the intent to cause harm. I think this is easier said than done, but it’s good they’re thinking about it.
blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/new-approach-to-synthetic-and-manipulated-media.html
Google Glass is back on sale. Since its ill-fated launch back in 2013, Glass has found a second life as an enterprise tool.
developers.googleblog.com/2020/02/glass-enterprise-edition-2-now.html