The Tech Landscape #152 📺
This is issue 152 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.
In the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail, the character Joe Fox (played by Tom Hanks) uses the screen name NY152. No idea why. Sorry.
I’ve been playing around with some short audio content formats in my spare time; I guess you can call it a podcast, if you insist. My two latest episodes are Lockdown Conversations, chats with a couple of my friends about what they’ve been doing in response to the quarantine conditions.
- Claire Medcalf, of Rehab, on her letter-writing project, Post Quarantine;
- Paul Stanway, of XYZ, on running a brand experience agency when you can’t hold live events.
Both are around 15 minutes and well worth your time, I’d say.
You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Google Podcasts, with more platforms coming soon.
Messaging
Google added new features to Duo, including a Family mode with drawing tools and AR masks (which can now also be used in one-to-one calls), and group calling on the Web. Video calling tools are iterating rapidly to take advantage of the lockdown (see also Zoom, below).
blog.google/products/duo/family-mode/
Google has brought all of its messaging tools—Hangouts, Chat, Meet, Duo, and Messages—under the control of the same team, as it aims to bring some kind of coherence to its messaging strategy.
theverge.com/2020/5/7/21250790/google-android-messaging-duo-phone-g-suite-javier-soltero-hangouts-chat
Zoom has bought Keybase, a service which provides cryptographic file sharing and messaging. Zoom got hammered for poor security but has seen massive growth anyway, and is reacting impressively fast to improve.
blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keybase-and-announces-goal-of-developing-the-most-broadly-used-enterprise-end-to-end-encryption-offering/
Social
Facebook’s redesign, which puts emphasis on Groups and Pages, is rolling out globally. It was originally announced at F8 last year and available for early testing for a few months now.
about.fb.com/news/2020/05/the-new-facebook-com/
Facebook released the latest versions of its Graph API and Marketing API, giving finer control over permissions for Pages and advertising budget management, and less access to user data.
developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/changelog/version7.0
Facebook launched Discover, an app for developing markets which provides free browsing to any low-bandwidth (no audio or video) websites using a daily data allowance provided by network carrier partners. Its previous effort, Free Basics, was criticised for only allowing access to selected websites.
tech.fb.com/discover/
The CAA talent agency signed its first virtual influencer, the Instagram account (and pop star) Miquela. It sounds wacky, but 2.2 million followers and no personal scandals must sound quite compelling to advertisers.
variety.com/2020/digital/news/miquela-virtual-influencer-signs-caa-1234599368/
Entertainment
Fortnite officially launched its Party Royale mode with a live concert featuring Deadmau5 and Steve Aoki. Keep watching this, interesting things are happening.
eurogamer.net/articles/2020-05-07-fortnite-books-deadmau5-and-more-for-party-royale-premiere-gig
Epic Games says 27.7 million unique players participated in the Travis Scott event in Fortnite, with a total of 45.8 million participations.
twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1254817584676929537
Retail
Pinterest launched a new Shopify app which makes it easier for retailers to make their catalogues shoppable on the social platform. Pinterest and Shopify have done really well out of the lockdown, and it seems like there’s an aggregated Amazon competitor emerging.
newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/pinterest-launches-shopify-app-for-easy-merchant-access-to-catalogs
ASOS is accelerating the rollout of See My Fit, the tool which applies clothes digitally to models to better show sizing and fit. COVID-19 has made it harder to do studio photoshoots, and it also helps reduce returns if people have a better idea of how something looks before buying.
chargedretail.co.uk/2020/05/05/asos-ramps-up-roll-out-of-ar-see-my-fit-app-to-help-protect-the-wellbeing-of-our-models-and-staff/
Stat of the Week
There were 13 million ecommerce retailers from rural areas of China in the first quarter of this year, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Ecommerce is touted (and backed by the government) as the way to bring rural areas out of poverty.
abacusnews.com/china-tech-city/13-million-farmers-are-selling-goods-online-china/article/3082937
Google Products
Google was due to hold its IO conference this week, but it was obviously cancelled like every other global live event. Instead, Google announced a lot of new product features separately.
YouTube announced new features for advertising on TV screens, including Brand Lift surveys and skippable ads. This comes as it reports massive increases in streaming to TV, especially live streaming.
blog.google/products/ads/youtube-streaming-trends-features/
Google released Podcast Manager, a dashboard for podcast analytics and insights. Google Podcasts had kind of a half-baked launch, but it’s getting there.
blog.google/products/search/new-way-podcasters-understand-and-grow-their-audiences/
Google Lens gained new features including reading out text in a foreign language, concept explanations, and a very useful copy from camera to computer.
blog.google/products/google-lens/new-google-lens-features-help-you-be-more-productive-home/
Google’s AR Search gained new models including various parts of the human body, and video recording for easier sharing. Another beneficiary of the lockdown.
blog.google/products/google-lens/make-home-learning-more-fun-3d-and-ar-search/
Read Along with Google is an app which uses speech recognition to help children improve their reading ability. It launched in India a year ago, and is now launching in 180 countries in nine languages.
blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/early-access-read-along/
Everything Else
The Firefox browser is testing Private Relay, a new privacy tool which uses ‘burner’ email accounts to sign up for web services. As Firefox’s market share drops drastically it’s repositioning itself to appeal to those who put a premium on privacy.
thenextweb.com/security/2020/05/04/mozillas-handy-new-firefox-extension-generates-burner-email-addresses-on-demand/
Tinder announced that it will introduce video chat later this year. Obviously video-calling is having a moment, but seems like this might be late to the party.
inputmag.com/tech/tinder-will-launch-in-app-video-chat-this-year
A new digital payments system, Mojaloop, has been launched for developing countries by a coalition of organisations including Google and the Gates Foundation. It’s not a currency but an open, freely-available standardised system which countries can run their own version of while maintaining compatibility with other markets.
fortune.com/2020/05/06/google-gates-foundation-digital-payments-developing-countries/