The Tech Landscape #150 š»
This is issue 150 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 anthropologist Robin Dunbar said that the number of people with whom humans can comfortably maintain stable social relationshipsāor āthe number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar"āis 150.
150 is a bit of a milestone, isnāt it? I feel like it should be celebrated, so treat yourselves to an extra biscuit and think of me.
Messaging
Facebook announced Messenger Rooms, group video chat with up to 50 participants, including people who donāt have a Facebook account. Itās obviously a response to Houseparty and Zoom, but Messengerās infrastructure makes it easier to invite guests.
about.fb.com/news/2020/04/introducing-messenger-rooms/
Facebook rolled out Avatars, its Bitmoji clone, in Europe. The character can be used to provide personalised response stickers in Facebook comments and Messenger posts.
techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/facebook-avatars-a-bitmoji-competitor-launches-in-europe/
Facebook launched Messenger Kids in 70 new countries, and added new safety features including āsupervised friendingā, which lets kids add their own contacts but with parental override, and letting trusted adults connect kids through groups they manage.
about.fb.com/news/2020/04/expanding-messenger-kids/
Google is adding more features to its Duo video calling, including better video quality and reliability, and larger group sizes. It says it has seen an 8x increase in group calls in the past four weeks.
blog.google/products/duo/4-new-google-duo-features-help-you-stay-connected/
Zoom hit 300m users on 21st April, up 100m from 1st April. The disgracefully bad security problems donāt seem to have put people off from using it.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/zoom-daily-users-surge-to-300-million-despite-privacy-woes
Conversocial, one of the biggest CRM platforms, added support for Apple Business Chat. It lets businesses message consumers through Messages on iOS and MacOS, and is a big boost for Appleās service.
9to5mac.com/2020/04/20/conversocial-apple-business-chat/
Games
12.3 million people participated in the launch event in Fortnite for a new song by Travis Scott, publisher Epic Games said. That doesnāt include the repeat performances or viewers of live-streamed or recorded sessions. I watched it and was very impressed; the first āI was thereā event of virtual worlds.
twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1253524351376330752?s=20
Fortnite is now available on Googleās Play Store. Epic previously complained that Googleās 30% revenue cut was too high and only made the game available to sideload, but now says Google is making it harder to load apps without going through the Play Store so Epic doesnāt have another option.
techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/epic-games-launches-fortnite-on-the-google-play-store-and-theyre-not-happy-about-it/
Sky Sports and BBC iPlayer showed the live finals of a charity tournament played in FIFA 20. In the absence of physical sport, eSports are increasingly being used to fill TV schedules.
theguardian.com/sport/2020/apr/24/bbc-and-sky-show-fifa-20-matches-as-world-sport-goes-online
Assistants & Voice
Google is rolling out a setting to adjust the sensitivity of the āHey Googleā wake phrase, meaning fewer false positives in the future. A small win for privacy.
blog.google/products/assistant/more-ways-fine-tune-google-assistant-you/
The Indian ICICI Bank launched a new voice app for both Alexa and Google Assistant. It lets users ask for details of their balance and recent transactions. For security the app uses two-factor authentication to set up, and sends results by text message.
voicebot.ai/2020/04/24/icici-bank-publishes-alexa-and-google-assistant-apps-for-banking-by-voice/
Advertising
Google will make it free to place products on its Shopping pages. The service was previously only available to advertisers, so this should hugely increase the range of available products. US this month, global this year.
blog.google/products/shopping/its-now-free-to-sell-on-google/
Google will require all advertisers on its platforms to verify their identities, as a measure of security and transparency. The requirement will begin in the US this year before rolling out globally.
blog.google/products/ads/advertiser-identity-verification-for-transparency/
Stat of the Week
There will be some 970 million smart audio devices (āhearablesā) in use in 2024, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Appleās AirPods currently are the current market leaders, but everyoneās in the space.
juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/hearable-devices-to-lead-the-wireless-headphones
Everything Else
Magic Leap is reportedly entirely shutting down its consumer AR efforts, laying off up to 1,000 employees in the process. The companyās AR headset was wildly over-hyped and failed to meet expectations or find a market, and is now focusing on enterprise uses. The wait for AR glasses goes on.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/magic-leap-is-said-to-cut-half-of-jobs-in-major-restructuring
Apple made some of its core services, including the App Store and Apple Music, available in many more countries, largely across the Middle East and Africa. With hardware expected to take a hit this year, services are critical to Appleās revenue.
apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-services-now-available-in-more-countries-around-the-world/
Google released its Cloud Healthcare API, a service for storing and retrieving confidential health data. Itās a B2B tool, but should make it easier for patients to access and share their data.
cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/how-google-cloud-is-supporting-healthcare-and-life-sciences-organizations
Facebook has paid Ā£4.6bn for a 10% share in Indian internet giant, Jio. India is a huge market for WhatsApp and a growing number of Instagram users.
about.fb.com/news/2020/04/facebook-invests-in-jio/