The Tech Landscape 154 🐡
This is issue 154 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.
Brown FK, also known as Chocolate Brown or Kipper Brown, is a dye used to artificially colour smoked and cured mackerel and kippers (hence the name). It’s EU food additive code is E154.
Retail
Facebook announced Shops, for small businesses to make their catalogues available across all of its platforms. This is massive; businesses can keep using their current shop platforms (eg Shopify) but get global, billion-scale reach and messaging tools. Later in the year it will also launch Live Shopping, selling directly through live streams (think QVC), currently a $100bn industry in China but mostly unknown here.
about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/
Pinterest announced Shopping Spotlights, curated collections of items to buy. This feels like where Instagram Guides (see below) will go in the future.
newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/pinterest-launches-curated-shopping-spotlights
Social
Instagram announced Guides, a tool for creators to group collections of content into a single page. Initially focused on wellbeing, but later to be rolled out to other types of content—you can imagine this being useful for shopping guides. Instagram has come a long way from being a feed of photos.
about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/supporting-well-being-with-instagram-guides/
Twitter is testing a feature which allows users to limit replies to a tweet to only people you follow, or only people you mention. It has practical use in controlling conversations, like live interviews, but can also be used to shut out valid criticism. Like most new Twitter features, a lot of people hate it before they’ve tried it.
twitter.com/Twitter/status/1263145271946551300
XR
Firefox’s experimental Reality browser, for mixed-reality devices, launched on the HoloLens app store. It brings the WebXR standard to the headset.
blog.mozvr.com/firefox-reality-hololens/
Facebook’s Oculus Quest VR headset is gaining hand-tracking controls in a software update this week. Natural hand movement and interaction is important for building natural XR experiences.
theverge.com/2020/5/18/21260554/oculus-quest-anniversary-hand-tracking-third-party-games-beat-saber-tracks
Stat of the Week
Facebook said that it’s sold $100 million worth of content for the Oculus Quest in the first year of the device being on sale. The company had stated the same figure for sales of content on all previous Oculus devices combined in October last year, so Quest is doing very well. It’s the best VR headset to date, no doubt.
techcrunch.com/2020/05/18/oculus-surpasses-100-million-in-quest-content-sales/
Audio
Spotify announced an exclusivity deal for the unbelievably (inexplicably?) popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The deal, said to be worth $100m, will see the podcast available exclusively through Spotify, although still free to listen (if you have an account). It’s by far the biggest exclusivity deal in the market and a sign that Spotify sees its future in spoken word rather than, for which it has to turn over much of the profit to publishers.
newsroom.spotify.com/2020-05-19/the-joe-rogan-experience-launches-exclusive-partnership-with-spotify/
Google Nest, it’s smart home brand, seems to be moving into content with the first Nest Sessions, a three-day event of music and talk ‘inspired by psychology’.
list.co.uk/article/116369-jessie-ware-olly-alexander-and-more-to-take-part-in-googles-nest-sessions/
Advertising
Google’s Chrome browser will block ‘heavy’ ads that use a disproportionate share of a device’s battery or data, such as those which use hidden cryptominers or are just plain badly coded. It’s obviously in Google’s interest for ads to be displayed, so this helps avoid making people download adblocking software.
blog.chromium.org/2020/05/resource-heavy-ads-in-chrome.html
Google announced YouTube Select, a new tool for advertisers to choose bundles of channels of curated content to show ads against, allowing for more brand-safe choices of target. It gives an opportunity for advertisers to better choose where to place their ads, and reduce revenue for popular but controversial content.
blog.google/products/ads/introducing-youtube-select/
The New York Times is building its own first-party advertising network and will no longer use third-party services. The NYT has attacked Facebook and Google in the past for tracking user data across sites, while doing the same itself.
axios.com/new-york-times-advertising-792b3cd6-4bdb-47c3-9817-36601211a79d.html
Operating Systems
Apple and Google jointly released their COVID-19 Exposure Notification APIs, Apple through iOS 13.5 and Google through an update to Play Services. Important to note that neither works on their own; an app from a recognised healthcare authority must be installed (the UK’s version might not use this).
bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52740131
Android added some new accessibility features including Action Blocks, which provide one-touch shortcuts to Assistant actions, and many more languages for Live Transcribe.
blog.google/products/android/accessibility-updates-help-tech-work-everyone/
More Chinese smartphone manufacturers signed up to the P2P Transmission Alliance, working on making a common Airdrop-like file-sharing protocol across all devices. Google is reported to be working on its version, Nearby Sharing, but this wouldn’t be available in China.
androidpolice.com/2020/05/22/oneplus-black-shark-realme-and-meizu-join-file-sharing-peer-to-peer-transmission-alliance/
Everything Else
Google is testing a simpler user interface for the Nest Hub Max smart display as part of a program which put 1,000 devices into care homes in the US. Seems like a tacit admission that few people are using these devices to anything like their capability.
blog.google/products/google-nest/nest-hub-max-covid-19-merrill-garden/
BBC R&D is trialling BBC Together, a service which lets groups of people watch iPlayer content together despite being physically separated. It’s just a trial and not guaranteed to become a product, but interesting to see the Beeb join the social watching trend.
bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2020-05-iplayer-watch-party-group-watching-viewing
Amazon Games Studio launched its first original title, Crucible, a free-to-play multiplayer game. It’s designed for viewing on livestreams, like the Amazon-owned Twitch.
inputmag.com/gaming/amazons-first-big-budget-game-crucible-launches-today