The Tech Landscape #90
Kepler-90 is the 90th star confirmed by the Kepler telescope to have a planetary system. The system contains the same number of planets as our own; the eighth of those, Kepler-90i, was discovered by a machine learning method developed by Google.
MWC (formerly Mobile World Congress) starts officially today, Monday 25th January, but there are always a bunch of new product keynotes from some of the leading players before it all gets started. So the first section of this week’s newsletter is devoted to that.
MWC19
Three notable trends in the announcements so far from this year’s MWC. The first is that, as the smartphone market slows down, there’s a lot more experimentation with form and features to persuade people to buy a new phone; that most obviously manifests itself in foldable screens, which were everywhere. The second is 5G support beginning to appear, even though there are few (to no) 5G networks yet. The third is that Google is pushing Assistant hard on low-to-mid-range phones, especially in developing markets.
Samsung announced its 2019 Galaxy hardware range, including three versions of the S10 smartphone, and the Samsung Galaxy Fold, a foldable smartphone (with a hefty €2,000/$1,980 price tag), new wireless ear pods, and two new smart watches / fitness devices.
wired.com/story/everything-samsung-announced-unpacked-2019/
Huawei threw its hat into the foldable smartphone ring with the Mate X, which folds out into an 8” screen with an almost square 8:7.1 display ratio. It will cost a whopping €2,299.
consumer.huawei.com/en/phones/mate-x/
LG showed off a few innovations: the V50 comes with a clip-on extra screen (no folding), which will only be available in certain markets, while the G8 has an infrared camera for vein-mapping Hand ID(!) and a screen that vibrates to act as a speaker.
venturebeat.com/2019/02/24/lg-g8-v50-g8s-thinq/
Xiaomi will launch its latest smartphone, Mi 9, in Europe for the first time, priced at a very competitive €449. They also announced the Mi Mix 3 will get a new 5G version later this year in time for the early rollout of 5G networks.
9to5google.com/2019/02/24/xiaomi-mi-9-europe-mi-mix-3-5g/
(Huawei and Xiaomi were by far the fastest-growing smartphone makers globally last year.)
LG’s new mid-range and budget phones have a dedicated Google Assistant hardware button.
androidpolice.com/2019/02/20/lg-announces-three-new-budget-phones-with-ai-cameras-and-google-assistant-buttons/
Nokia’s new budget smartphones, the 3.2 and 4.2, also come with a dedicated Google Assistant button and are priced at under $200.
theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/24/18236618/nokia-4-3-1-plus-210-buttons-google-assistant-mwc-2019
Google played up its partnerships with Android phone makers, including supporting foldable screens and hardware Assistant buttons.
blog.google/products/android/shaping-future-mobile-android/
Assistants & Voice
Amazon continue to lead in global smart speaker sales but Google are making up ground, according to Strategy Research. More smart speakers were sold globally in the last financial quarter of 2018 than in the whole of 2017, and around 10% of shipments were smart displays.
voicebot.ai/2019/02/20/amazon-increases-global-smart-speaker-sales-share-in-q4-2018-while-googles-rise-narrows-the-gap-and-apple-declines/
Samsung’s Bixby assistant is now available in British English, German, Italian, and Spanish. It previously understood only US English, Korean, and Mandarin.
samsungmobilepress.com/news/samsung-extends-global-reach-of-bixby-launches-support-for-new-european-languages
Samsung’s smart speaker, the Galaxy Home, will launch by April. It will be powered by the company’s own assistant, Bixby.
cnet.com/news/galaxy-home-will-launch-by-april-samsung-ceo-says/
Xiaomi announced its first smart display, XiaoAI Touchscreen Speaker Box. It’s likely to use their own XiaoAI assistant in China, and Google Assistant everywhere else.
voicebot.ai/2019/02/21/xiaomi-reveals-new-smart-display-home-hub/
Qualcomm, who make chips and processors, have released a new development kit that makes it easier for home WiFi mesh network manufacturers to add built-in support for Alexa.
digitaltrends.com/home/qualcomm-mesh-wi-fi-alexa/
XR
Microsoft announced the second version of their HoloLens mixed-reality headset. It’s smaller, more powerful, has a better field of view, is cloud-connected, and is intended (for now) as a business tool—wisely, they’re not pushing this as a mainstream consumer device just yet.
wired.com/story/microsoft-hololens-2-headset/
LEGO announced Hidden Side, a new range of toys which are enhanced by an AR mobile app.
venturebeat.com/2019/02/14/lego-hidden-side-uses-haunted-toys-to-advance-ar-on-android-and-ios/
The BBC are trialling the use of 5G mesh networks for location-based AR, with their first experiment at the Roman Baths in Bath.
bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2019-02-5g-mobile-augmented-reality-bath
Social Media
Instagram are testing a sticker for Stories which will allow users to donate to selected charities (and also laying the ground for micropayments to other users in the future?).
techcrunch.com/2019/02/18/instagram-fundraisers/
Users of Google Maps on iOS can now subscribe to places to receive updates about new features and offers. This has been available on Android for a few months. It makes Maps into a platform for small businesses to reach customers without social media.
blog.google/products/maps/now-ios-follow-your-favorite-places-google-maps/
Hardware
O2 announced it will roll out 5G networks in four cities in the UK from 2020, becoming the fourth major UK operator to commit to the technology.
news.o2.co.uk/press-release/o2-5g-to-arrive-in-2019-as-company-builds-a-5g-economy-in-partnership-with-british-business/
Microsoft’s Kinect—originally a hands-free peripheral for the Xbox—has made a return as a cloud-connected standalone sensor.
theverge.com/2019/2/24/18237244/microsoft-azure-kinect-developer-kit-price-release-date-mwc-2019
An unconfirmed rumour says that Apple has a multi-year project to merge iOS and MacOS apps, making it easier (and more lucrative) for developers to write a single app that works everywhere.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/apple-is-said-to-target-combining-iphone-ipad-mac-apps-by-2021
Everything Else
The Tensorflow project released a new computer vision model that can detect body outlines and separate them from the background—useful for occlusion, a technique for simulating depth in AR by letting objects pass ‘behind’ other objects.
medium.com/tensorflow/introducing-bodypix-real-time-person-segmentation-in-the-browser-with-tensorflow-js-f1948126c2a0
Google will hold a special keynote at next month’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) where they’re strongly expected to announce their game streaming platform that will take on Microsoft, Sony, etc. They’ve been trialling ‘project stream’ for six months.
theverge.com/2019/2/19/18231474/google-gaming-keynote-gdc-2019
Digital advertising spend in the US will surpass all non-digital spending for the first time this year, according to a report by eMarketer.
axios.com/digital-ad-spend-to-surpass-all-traditional-media-spend-this-year-1550616703-9308add3-aaf0-4e9f-b393-b9d7f1be55f2.html
Google Maps and Search will now tell people in the US the location of their nearest safe disposal point for excess of unwanted medication, in an effort to help combat the opioid crisis.
blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/opioid-crisis-maps-search/
Citymapper have launched a new London travel pass that includes public transport in zones 1 & 2, plus for an extra payment unlimited bike travel and two trips in Citymapper’s own car pool service.
medium.com/citymapper/citymapper-pass-17c56da5dfa0
Author’s Notes
If you’re in any way interested I wrote a piece about how I’m using Airtable to manage a combined trends-tracking database and email publishing schedule, which I used for the very first time on last week’s newsletter.
Eagle-eyed readers—or, indeed, pretty much everyone—may have noticed that last week’s email made a few references to “The Thoughtful Net”, most noticeably as the name of the sender. This is the name of a different email that I also write, and it was included here in error.