The Tech Landscape #167 š„
This is issue 167 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 Epic vs Apple fight has rumbled on into a second week, with Apple threatening to cut Epicās access to all iOS support for its Unreal Engine, which powers a lot of games. Epic has filed a new suit against Apple because of this, and Microsoft has written in support of the suit because it threatens some of its games on the platform. I genuinely donāt know what the outcome of all this will be, but my hope is that Appleās strong-arming of the flat 30% fee (except for special cases, like Amazon Prime Video) wonāt last.
theverge.com/2020/8/23/21397369/epic-apple-fortnite-lawsuit-ios-microsoft-developer-tax
Meanwhile, TikTok is suing the US government over its intent to ban, citing āa lack of due process as the administration paid no attention to factsā, which pithily sums up the entirety of the Trump government to date.
variety.com/2020/digital/news/tiktok-lawsuit-trump-administration-ban-1234745456/
This is the dawning of the age of regulation.
Top Stories
XR Users of Oculus VR headsets will have to sign in using their Facebook account in the future, as Oculus accounts are being phased out. This makes perfect sense for Facebook, but the idea of the company monitoring even more user data has been received exactly as you might expect by people on Twitter.
oculus.com/blog/a-single-way-to-log-into-oculus-and-unlock-social-features/
Assistants & Voice Amazon has paused hiring for its Alexa team as the devices struggle to earn revenue, according to a report by Bloomberg. The Skills gold rush hasnāt panned out, voice shopping levels have fallen after an early rise, and most use seems to be around search queries and music, which is tied to the Prime subscription. Voice is a useful interface, but itās not growing as a platform.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-20/amazon-alexa-unit-pauses-hiring-amid-pressure-to-make-money
Messaging Zoom announced partnerships with the three major smart display makers, meaning calls will be coming to Echo Show, Nest Hub, and Portal later this year. Thatās a hell of a deal for Zoom, and useful for Amazon (whose own video calling service isnāt very popular) and Facebook (which is opening the Portal to other services; see below), but Iām not sure I see the advantage for Google, which is trying to grow Meet as a competitor.
blog.zoom.us/zoom-expands-to-smart-displays-at-home/
Social
Instagram replaced its proprietary Nametags with QR Codes, making it easier to discover people andāespeciallyābusinesses. Nametags could only be scanned from within Instagram, whereas QR work everywhere. Iām loving the QR comeback story.
wersm.com/instagram-rolls-out-qr-codes-worldwide-for-real-this-time/
Instagram will offer suggested posts from content related to accounts you follow at the end of your āall caught upā messageābecoming, in effect, an infinite stream. Like TikTok.
theverge.com/2020/8/19/21373809/instagram-suggested-posts-update-end-feed
Snapchat is testing a feature that will allow users to share Snap Originals and Shows beyond the app, via a URL. Itās part of an effort to grow its audience, and make it more attractive to publishing partners and advertisers.
axios.com/snapchat-content-off-app-f9cb731a-ea1e-4767-8a8e-a2be018ce370.html
Everything Else
Messaging Facebookās Portal will support video calling from BlueJeans, Webex, Zoom [ref] and more, in addition to Messenger, WhatsApp, and Workplace calls. It will also gain a dedicated Workplace login option for business accounts. This is a pretty aggressiveāand smartāmove into the business videoconferencing market.
about.fb.com/news/2020/08/new-video-conferencing-apps-on-portal/
Wearables Google dropped its first feature update for Pixel Buds, which adds bass boost, detecting when buds are shared between users, alerts for sounds like crying babies and emergency sirens, and live translation and transcription of English text into French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
blog.google/products/pixel-buds/bass-boost-sharing-detection-new-pixelbuds-features/
Assistants & Voice Google Assistant can now send audio messages directly to apps that support it, including Duo and WhatsApp. It says the feature is out now, although not currently working on my phone.
blog.google/products/assistant/6-ways-use-your-voice-get-more-done/
Browsers Chrome will start labelling websites with particularly good user experience (according to its own metrics), starting with a āFast Pageā label before users click a link. The labels are pretty subtle right now, but itās a good bet theyāll be more prominent in future, and probably gain rewards in the Search results page.
blog.chromium.org/2020/08/highlighting-great-user-experiences-on.html
Fintech Samsung launched Pay Card in the UK, a virtual card in the Samsung Pay app, which can aggregate all existing Visa and Mastercard cards, with banking services powered by UK fintech startup, Curve.
techcrunch.com/2020/08/18/samsung-pay-card-launches-in-uk/
XR Facebookās Oculus signed a deal with the USās NBA, which will see Oculus become āofficial VR headset partnerā for the league, and naming rights for a camera view. Easrlier this year Apple bought a company called NextVR which has VR rights for sports leagues, so this is presumably an area seen as potentially lucrative.
sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2020/nba-vr-oculus-facebook-marketing-partnershp-1234611642/
Maps Google added near-live wildfire tracking and alerts to Search and Maps. What with this and last weekās earthquake detection, smartphones are making disaster movies obsolete.
blog.google/products/search/mapping-wildfires-with-satellite-data/
Audio Nest smart speakers and displays are getting multi-room audio support. This may be why Sonos is suing Google.
blog.google/products/google-nest/new-multi-room-audio-control-nest/
Martina Navratilova won 167 singles titles, an all-time record for both men and women.