The Tech Landscape #194 đź–Ľ
Facebook pays creators, Instagram Lite gets bigger, and Google Maps as social media: this is issue 194 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.
I’m writing this paragraph still on a buzz (that is, slightly drunk) from watching Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-1 in the football earlier today. I know objectively that it’s bit odd to derive pleasure from the outcome of something that’s outside of your control, but a lot of culture just comes down to the value we arbitrarily put on things.
This week a digital work by the artist Beeple sold for around £50m—or, rather, Ethereum cryptocurrency valued at around £50m at the time, but could be worth anything by now given the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies. My general hunch on this is that it’s got little to do with the art market, really, it’s just a way for cryptocurrency speculators to pump the economy to make their investments more valuable. I wrote a bit more about art and the blockchain here.
Anyway, I’m fed up of the conversation around NFTs for this week. Let’s get on with the (somewhat Google-heavy, this week) newsletter. Hope you’re well!
Top Stories
Facebook is expanding the options for video creators to earn money on its platform. Videos at least one-minute long can now offer ads (three minutes was previously the lower limit), a new ad unit that looks like a sticker is being tested, and viewers of live streams can use Stars to pay for comments and send digital gifts to the streamers. In addition, paid online events and fan subscriptions are being extended to more countries. Creators make fandoms, fandoms make money.
about.fb.com/news/2021/03/helping-content-creators-diversify-revenue-on-facebook/
Social
Facebook released Instagram Lite to 170 new countries around the world, and redesigned it to include Reels. IG Lite is intended for lower-powered Android devices, and leaves out some features like Spark AR effects. It isn’t available in some of its wealthier markets, or for iOS.
about.fb.com/news/2021/03/bringing-instagram-lite-to-170-countries/
Social
Google Maps will let people add photo updates to places, without requiring a review. It’s also adding a new editing tool to let people suggest missing paths and roads, and will run a campaign in the US aimed at getting people more involved in updating local business details. This is interesting because many of Google Maps’ rivals—Facebook Maps, Amazon Maps, Apple Maps—use data from OpenStreetMap, which is entirely crowdsourced, so seems like an attempt from Google to get the same level of community involvement—but only for its own data.
blog.google/products/maps/three-new-ways-anyone-can-update-google-maps/
Maps
Everything Else
Chrome OS added new features for tighter integration between Chromebooks and Android phones. Phone Hub adds messaging, battery life monitoring, and location of your phone from the laptop; and WiFi sync makes it easier to share hotspots and passwords between devices. Chromebooks have had a very strong year of sales, so the more Google can do to make it work more closely with Android, the better the Android proposition becomes too.
blog.google/products/chromebooks/chromebook-turns-10-new-features/
Operating Systems
Google moved ML Kit, its machine learning software library for smartphone cameras and text, out of beta. It also added a new beta service, Selfie Segmentation, which separates human characters from their backgrounds to add digital effects like background blurring.
developers.googleblog.com/2021/03/ml-kit-is-now-in-ga-introducing-selfie.html
Machine Learning
Epic Games acquired Capturing Reality, which makes software that builds 3D objects from images or laser scans. The technology will be integrated with the Unreal Engine, meaning low-friction conversion from photographing physical objects to having them appear in virtual scenes.
epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/capturing-reality-is-now-part-of-epic-games
Camera
Twitter is running a public test to display images in the feed without automated cropping. I know a few cases of cropping have lead to unfortunate outcomes, but I really don’t think this is better—it means a lot more scrolling.
twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1369680667886444548
Social
Google is making it free for hotels and travel companies to list on its hotel booking tool. It follows previous moves to make flights and shopping free—and a kind of retreat to relying on advertising revenue rather than commissions.
blog.google/products/flights-hotels/more-choice-travelers-free-hotel-booking-links/
Search
Google made Pointy, a device scanner for small businesses to put their stock online, free to all businesses in Ireland. It bought the Dublin-based startup back in January of 2020. Qualifying businesses can get the device for free, and use its barcode scanner to automatically add physical goods to online inventory—useful for businesses which are not ecommerce natives.
blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/irish-retailers-can-build-online-presence-pointy/
Commerce
Google’s WearOS smart watch system will allow developers to create custom Tiles. The new feature in its Jetpack developer tool is currently in alpha, with a view to full release later in Spring along with an update to Wear OS. It still remains to be seen if Wear OS can be saved; devices that use it lag far behind in smart watch sales, and it’s still unclear what the recent acquisition of Fitbit means for Google’s future plans.
android-developers.googleblog.com/2021/03/creating-custom-tiles-on-wear-os-by-google-with-jetpack-tiles.html
Wearables
Google is implementing more rigorous quality requirements for its Smart Home Actions platform. Device makers who want to use the platform will have to reach certain performance and security metrics before having their Actions approved.
developers.googleblog.com/2021/03/policy-changes-certification-requirement-updates-smart-home-actions.html
Smart Home
Apple has discontinued its original HomePod smart speaker. It will now focus exclusively on the HomePod Mini, which offers much of the same feature set for a significantly lower price.
techcrunch.com/2021/03/12/apple-discontinues-original-homepod-will-focus-on-mini/
Smart Home
Harman Kardon’s Invoke smart speaker will remove Cortana in a software update. It was the only smart speaker to offer Microsoft’s voice assistant, which is generally being phased out everywhere. The speaker will not use a replacement assistant, instead only offering Bluetooth control.
theverge.com/2021/3/9/22320952/harman-kardon-microsoft-cortana-integration-end-of-support
Assistants & Voice
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