The Tech Landscape #176 đż
Google and WhatsApp go shopping, and gaming and entertainment get closer: this is issue 176 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.
No top stories this week, as most of the announcements were about moving things into position for the futureâa bit like the last episode of each season of Game of Thrones.
Ecommerce
The Christmas/holidays season is coming, and lockdown has accelerated ecommerce, so the big platforms are adding new ways to shop online.
Facebook announced new business features coming to WhatsApp: tools for displaying catalogue and purchasing, and hosting services for managing communications and catalogue. It also announced its intention to start charging for some of these services.
blog.whatsapp.com/shopping-payments-and-customers-on-whatsapp
Google announced new features for Shopping: price insights to show how an items price compares to other sellers, and price tracking to get notifications when an itemâs price drops. Itâs all US-only for now.
blog.google/products/shopping/early-online-nearby-deals-google/
Games / The Metaverse
As lockdown leaves us starved of live music, and cinemas remain a no-go, gaming and interactive spaces continue to integrate entertainers and entertainment franchises.
Fortniteâs latest virtual event is a Halloween show by reggaeton megastar J Balvin, debuting a new song. It will feature exclusive gear for attendees, and thereâs a creator-published island with J Balvin games. Epic Games also published new guidelines for authorised live stream creators sharing content from the show, allowing them to monetise their videos for one week after the event.
epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/watch-j-balvin-in-a-special-fortnitemares-performance-in-the-afterlife-party
Fortnite is adding licensed Ghostbusters outfits into its store. This is while the Marvelâs Avengers promotion is still ongoingâthis kind of cross-licensing is pretty unique to Fortnite.
twitter.com/Ghostbusters/status/1320153098942181377
Call of Duty is getting into licensed events with its Halloween mode featuring characters from the Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre films.
eurogamer.net/articles/2020-10-19-call-of-dutys-haunting-of-verdansk-event-gets-texas-chainsaw-massacre-saw-tie-ins
Everything Else
Messaging Facebook is updating its Messenger API to include Instagram, making it easier for developers to write applications that include both services. Yet another step in the journey to integrate the two platforms; itâs convenient for users and developers, and harder to break the two services up.
developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2020/10/19/messenger-api-to-support-Instagram/
Social Instagram is more broadly rolling out âfan badgesâ for Live streams, allowing viewers to buy badges which let them stand out in the stream and provide a share of revenue to the stream creator. The feature was originally announced back in May.
techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/instagram-rolls-out-fan-badges-for-live-videos-expands-igtv-ads-test/
Camera Snapchatâs camera can now scan food labels to provide nutrition information, and wine labels for reviews and tasting notes, thanks to partnerships with Yuka and Vivino.
press.snap.com/en-GB/food-wine-scanner
Virtual Identity Genies, a personalised avatar service, has released a new software development kit which makes it easy for apps to offer animated, 3D avatarsâopening up the possibility of transferring social identity into AR/VR, and games. Giphy and Gucci are among the first brands to include the new avatars.
techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/genies-updates-its-software-development-kit-and-partners-with-gucci-giphy/
Assistants & Voice Google announced a revamp of its Nest Hub smart display software with a new âvisual experienceâ which includes new start, media, and communication pages which update contextually throughout the day, improved smart home controls, and automatic framing of Meet video calls (on the Nest Hub Max).
blog.google/products/assistant/our-favorite-10-new-things-coming-smart-displays/
Assistants & Voice Spotifyâs podcasts are coming to Google Assistantâpreviously, Assistant could only connect to Google Podcasts.
newsroom.spotify.com/2020-10-21/spotify-listeners-can-now-play-podcasts-on-google-assistant-devices/
Synthetic Media Resemble AI, a service which creates a synthetic model of your voice, can now automatically translate your voice into over 50 languages. This is so massive: record an hour of sample dialogue, use it to localise globally for much cheaper than hiring multiple speakers.
voicebot.ai/2020/10/15/resemble-ai-can-now-clone-your-voice-to-speak-new-languages/
Synthetic Media Adobe announced a ton of new features for its Creative Cloud product, notably âneural filtersâ which add more machine learning to Photoshop, including dynamic updates to the age and facial expression of portrait subjects.
theverge.com/2020/10/20/21517616/adobe-photoshop-ai-neural-filters-beta-launch-machine-learning
Maps Googleâs Maps Platform now has a dedicated offering for deliveries and on-demand rides, including expected arrival and routes for rides, nearby drivers for faster pickups, and real-time status for drivers and pickups.
cloud.google.com/blog/products/maps-platform/announcing-google-maps-platform-demand-rides-deliveries-solution/
Google Antitrust
This week the US Department of Justice announced an antitrust lawsuit against Google for anticompetitive behaviour regarding the big money it pays to be the default search engine in rival browsers Firefox and Safari, amongst others. The Guardian has an overview of the announcement, Ben Thompson explains why this might be a valid case, Google calls it âdeeply flawedâ, and Firefox says âplease donât turn off the cash tapâ.
I donât know what my own opinion is on this yet, but itâs likely to take years to reach a resolution anyway, so thereâs plenty of time.
Last week a friend told me that if Iâd included a Monzo link instead of PayPal, he would have funded me. Letâs see if thatâs true. Monzo.me.