The Tech Landscape #155 šŗ
This is issue 155 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.
155 Scylla is an asteroid first discovered in 1875 then lost for 95 years before being rediscovered.
Anyone else fed up of āCOVID advertisingā already? The fake Zoom call was alright the first few times, but it just feels lazy and forced to keep doing it (and the scripted āyouāre on mute!ā in almost every one is painful). And thanking key workers while pushing your brand felt sincere at the start but now seems cynical.
XR
Web AR company 8th Wall introduced Face Effects for building Snapchat-like face masks using web technology. This opens up mask designs to a much wider audience: any device with a web browser.
medium.com/8th-wall/introducing-8th-wall-face-effects-9a2a3a8f5cd0
Facebookās Spark AR platform gained some new features including effects that react to music and a media library for applying effects to previously taken photos, as well as new tools to promote effects in Instagram.
sparkar.facebook.com/blog/spark-ar-expands-features-and-ar-capabilities-instagram/
HP announced an updated version of its Reverb VR headset. The Reverb G2 has high-resolution screens and will be compatible with Windows Mixed Reality and Valveās SteamVR.
forbes.com/sites/jessedamiani/2020/05/28/hp-officially-announces-reverb-g2-vr-headset/#25d4edc457ef
XRSpace announced its entry into the VR market with a new headset, Mova, which features 5G connectivity (not sure why as itāll be largely used indoors I imagine), and a new virtual world, Manova, which Iām pretty certain will be closed about 12 months after launch.
xrspace.io/us/press/press_release/global_announcement_5g_xr
Assistants & Voice
Google is testing voice confirmation for payments in Assistant. Itās limited to in-app digital purchases and restaurant delivery for now.
androidpolice.com/2020/05/25/google-assistant-gets-new-confirm-with-voice-match-setting-for-payments/
Amazon has officially ended support for the Echo Look, the Alexa-powered camera aimed at providing fashion recommendations.
venturebeat.com/2020/05/29/amazon-discontinues-the-echo-look-and-migrates-ai-style-recommendations-to-other-apps-and-devices/
Social
Instagram will start showing ads on its IGTV videos, with advertisers and creators pre-approved to begin with. Creators will get a 55% share of revenue, which Instagram hopes will tempt some of them away from YouTube.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-14/instagram-to-roll-out-video-advertising-in-challenge-to-youtube
Twitter added a feature to schedule tweets up to 18 months in the future, which might hobble a few third-party scheduling services.
twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1266081598748925961
Snapchat is reportedly going to allow developers to build apps on its platform, according to a report in The Information. This sounds very similar to WeChatās Mini Programs, a model which has proved extremely successful and been copied by many other Chinese apps.
fool.com/investing/2020/05/28/why-snap-stock-jumped-today.aspx
Search
Google announced new features for small businesses affected by COVID-19, including support links for buying vouchers or taking donations, and bookings and reservations for online services.
blog.google/outreach-initiatives/small-business/new-tools-help-businesses-during-covid-19/
Google will start including page experience as a ranking factor in search, and will allow sites that meet a minimum criteria to be considered for the Top Stories carousel currently reserved for AMP pages.
webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience.html
Messaging
T-Mobile in the US has updated its implementation of RCS (āSMS 2.0ā) to be fully compatible with Googleās Universal Profile, meaning customers can send rich messages to any other Android phone. Slowly but surely itās gaining momentum.
t-mobile.com/news/rcs-with-google
Juniper Research says there will be 744 million RCS-enabled phones in circulation by the end of 2020. Thatās a lot, but phones doesnāt mean users, and even if it did itās still only half of the number of WhatsApp users.
digitalinformationworld.com/2020/05/instant-messaging-users-will-jump-over-to-4-billion-sms-business-messaging-to-hit-3-and-half-trillion-messages-in-2020.html
Fintech
Samsung released details of Samsung Money, a cash management account and debit card which will tie in to its Samsung Pay app.
theverge.com/2020/5/27/21271684/samsung-money-pay-debit-card-program-sofi-mastercard-tracking-finance
Facebook announced that its digital wallet will be called Novi, and will work with its forthcoming Libra currency as a standalone app as well as in Messenger and WhatsApp.
about.fb.com/news/2020/05/welcome-to-novi/
Everything Else
Facebookās New Product Experimentation team released three new apps: CatchUp, which shows whoās online and ready to talk; Collab, which lets people make music together; and Venue, which adds social features to live events. Nothing wrong with experimenting, but I wonder if any of these experiments ever yield useful results.
adweek.com/digital/facebook-npe-team-releases-2-more-apps/
The Hulu video service introduced a Watch Party feature for up to eight subscribers to watch videos together. We donāt have Hulu in the UK but Iām including this because thereās a growing trend of social watching and listening.
theverge.com/2020/5/28/21273246/hulu-watch-party-feature-how-to-use-test