The Tech Landscape #179 đ
Instagramâs new focus, smarter Alexa, and Apple chips: this is issue 178 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 intro this week. Hope youâre well!
Top Stories
Instagram redesigned its home screen to include tabs for Reels and Shop, demoting the âadd new Feed contentâ icon to the top row. This makes it clear that, as it says, its focus is now (and apparently always has been) âyoung people and creatorsâ. The old feed-first photo-sharing app is on the way out.
about.fb.com/news/2020/11/introducing-reels-and-shop-tabs/
Alexa now supports âlatent goalsââthat is, trying to infer follow-up actions from a user request. For example, âhow long should I steep tea?â might return the answer, followed by a suggestion of setting a timer. Itâs another attempt at improving Skill discovery, which has consistently been one of the biggest problems for third-party developers.
amazon.science/blog/alexa-gets-better-at-predicting-customers-goals
Apple announced new a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini, which for the first time will use Appleâs own processor, the M1, custom-designed by Apple to bring speed and battery performance improvements.
theverge.com/2020/11/10/21550892/apple-arm-silicon-event-macbook-air-pro-mini-mac-big-sur-biggest-announcements
Everything Else
Search Google will start using Page Experience (a combination of speed, security, and usability) as a ranking factor from May 2021. Itâs also planning to allow news stories which meet certain content policies into its News Carousel on search pages, previously reserved for pages using AMP, on the same timeline.
webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/11/timing-for-page-experience.html
XR Facebookâs Spark AR tool for creating AR effects has unified the process for publishing effects to both Facebook and Messenger, making it easier to increase reach. Messenger isnât included, for some reason.
sparkar.facebook.com/blog/spark-ar-unifies-effect-publishing-across-facebook-instagram/
XR Facebook is rolling out Oculus Move, a fitness tracking app for Quest VR headsets. The very active Beat Saber has been one of the breakout VR titles, and Supernatural got a lot of press this Summer.
oculus.com/blog/the-first-gift-of-the-season-oculus-quest-update-adds-native-90hz-support-a-new-fitness-tracker-and-more/
XR The Nreal Light XR glasses are available for pre-order in Japan, following what seems to have been a successful launch in South Korea back in August. The much-hyped hardware tethers to modern 5G smartphones that use the latest Qualcomm chips, so it may be a while yet before it comes to the iPhone-dominated US and Western Europe.
forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2020/11/10/nreal-smartglasses-launch-in-japan/
XR Google added to its 3D/AR search results with eight new animals from Australia.
blog.google/products/search/say-gday-aussie-ar-animals/
XR Google is closing down its Expeditions educational VR app and moving the content to its Arts & Culture app, where it will be available in 360° but not in VR. Itâs pretty clear that Google doesnât see VR playing any serious role beyond gaming in future.
blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/expanding-google-arts-and-culture-expeditions/
Messaging Facebook announced Vanish Mode, where messages you send disappear after you leave the chat session, for Messenger (in the US, and coming to other countries and Instagram soon). It comes just a few weeks after a similar feature launched for WhatsApp.
messengernews.fb.com/2020/11/12/swipe-up-discover-vanish-mode-for-messenger-and-instagram/
Privacy Facebook announced new versions of its Graph and Marketing APIs, which brings several changes to ads and privacy including a requirement for apps to include a URL for customer data deletion requestsâmaking it easier and more consistent for users.
developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2020/11/10/introducing-graph-v9-marketing-api-v9/
Assistants & Voice Snap has bought Voca.ai, a voice assistant startup. Earlier this year Snap announced voice search coming to Snapchat through a partnership with Houndify; itâs unclear yet what the acquisition means for that deal.
techcrunch.com/2020/11/11/snap-acquired-voca-ai-which-makes-ai-based-voice-agents-for-call-centers-for-120m/
Audio Spotify bought Megaphone, a large podcast advertising and publishing platform. The deal, estimated to be worth ÂŁ180m, shows how strongly Spotify is investing in podcasting as the future of its serviceâmusic revenue doesnât scale as well.
newsroom.spotify.com/2020-11-10/how-spotify-is-strengthening-our-investment-in-podcast-advertising-with-acquisition-of-megaphone/
Search Google is adding more COVID-19 safety alerts and advisories to destination results as it prepares for people to start travelling again. Itâs also going to start surfacing more previous trip information in Maps and Photos, cashing in on the nostalgia boom.
blog.google/products/flights-hotels/holiday-travel-tips/
Privacy Inrupt, a startup for managing the Solid data ownership and control platform, released its first enterprise version for organisations to implement. Notable mainly because Inrupt and Solid are the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee, co-author of the World Wide Webâquite an accomplisment to try to follow up.
techcrunch.com/2020/11/08/tim-berners-lees-startup-inrupt-releases-solid-privacy-platform-for-enterprises/
Assistants & Voice Vodafone Spain launched its own smart speaker and voice assistant, Ătika. The speaker, which also supports Alexa, is considerably more expensive then its rivals, but is heavily integrated with Vodafone TV set-top boxes and owners of those will get a steep discount.
voicebot.ai/2020/11/11/vodafone-launches-atika-voice-assistant-and-smart-speaker-in-spain/
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