The Tech Landscape #96
The combined Apollo lunar missions brought back 380kg of moon rocks and dust. For the landers to return to Earth they had to leave behind a similar amount of weight in items; these include flags, boots, golf balls, and 96 bags of faeces, urine, and vomit.
After last week’s heavy dose of services and subscriptions, this week sees a return to actual tech news. And a lot of it; I think this is the longest newsletter I’ve sent to date.
Snap Partner Summit
Snap held their first Partner Summit last week, announcing new features and services as they try to maintain interest in their platform. Snapchat may not be growing, but it’s highly influential; if nothing else, it’s useful to get a preview of what will be popping up in Facebook’s products in a few weeks. :trollface:
Snapchat Lenses are getting smarter, with new features including real-time maths solutions. Lens Studio, their tool for Lens creators, had a major version update and brings new capabilities including hand and body tracking, and landmark detection.
snap.com/en-US/news/post/snap-partner-summit-new-snap-originals/
Snap Kit (the tool for sharing Snapchat content out of the app and into third party apps, and vice versa) can now share Stories (including into Tinder), add stickers from other apps (including Netflix) into Snaps. The new Ad Kit allows sharing of ads made for Snapchat into other apps (with a revenue share also). I suspect that their future may lay more in this direction.
snap.com/en-US/news/post/snap-partner-summit-plug-in-to-snap-kit/
Snap Games lets you play against your friends in chat sessions. It launches with six original titles, including one made by Snap itself. After Facebook’s constant copying, this seems like Snap are cloning Messenger’s Instant Games idea.
snap.com/en-US/news/post/snap-partner-summit-introducing-snap-games/
There’s a new slate of Snap Originals short-form video content, including a Buzzfeed afternoon show. The biggest Originals hit to date, Endless Summer, reached 28 million unique viewers.
snap.com/en-US/news/post/snap-partner-summit-new-snap-originals/
Assistants & Voice
Some requests of Google Assistant will return richer results, and even simple apps in some cases. This is notable for three reasons: it brings Assistant and Search closer together; it introduces advertising to Assistant; and this description of a session at next month’s IO conference makes it seem that developers will be able to build these light apps.
blog.google/products/assistant/new-types-of-answers-your-google-assistant-on-android/
Google Assistant got its first guest voice, as users in the US will hear John Legend give select answers. Announced at IO almost a year ago, there seems to be some smoke and mirrors here; while Google talk about voice synthesis, this appears to be mostly pre-recorded.
blog.google/products/assistant/talk-like-a-legend/
Duplex, the Google Assistant feature that robo-calls restaurants on your behalf, is losing its Pixel-exclusivity and rolling out to more phones. Still US-only.
theverge.com/2019/4/3/18293512/google-duplex-rollout-expansion-samsung-galaxy-s10-plus
Walmart announced voice shopping on Google Assistant in the US. By saying “talk to Walmart” people can add items to their shopping cart. IMO there’s still a lot of work to be done for third-party shopping on Assistant to improve.
news.walmart.com/2019/04/02/want-walmart-to-help-you-grocery-shop-with-our-new-voice-capabilities-just-say-the-word
It seems that Alexa are trying to make it easier to invoke Skills by dropping the Intent Request from Activation Phrases; that is, instead of “Alexa: talk to Skill Name”, you can say “Alexa: Skill Name”. It makes launching a little easier, but skill discovery is still hard.
voicebot.ai/2019/04/05/alexa-can-now-invoke-skills-without-a-launch-request-some-google-actions-can-do-this-too/
Amazon are rumoured to be working on their own Alexa-enabled smart earbuds. I would say: of course they are. It gives them the out-of-home presence they don’t have without their own phone OS.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-04/amazon-is-said-to-ready-airpods-rival-as-first-alexa-wearable
Amazon announced a partnership with six accredited healthcare providers for Alexa skills which involve patient medical data. These include scheduling appointments and tracking prescriptions.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-4db8-b203-99144a251a21/introducing-new-alexa-healthcare-skills
Amazon are running a free online instructional training conference for people who build, or want to learn to build, Alexa voice skills.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/d47ef72f-c02c-48c4-9797-f0e6a435a826/register-for-alexa-live-a-free-online-conference-for-voice-developers
Skype will replace their Cortana bot with an Alexa bot. This continues Microsoft’s deprecation of Cortana as a consumer assistant.
voicebot.ai/2019/04/01/skype-is-dropping-cortana-bot-while-promoting-alexa/
Apple’s new Powerbeats Pro wireless headphones have the same H1 ‘hearables’ chip as the AirPods 2, giving them hands-free ‘Hey Siri’ activation.
voicebot.ai/2019/04/04/apples-new-wireless-powerbeats-pro-offer-hey-siri-functionality/
Apple’s HomePod is not selling well, according to Bloomberg. Sales forecasts have been cut and stock is piling up. Its price has been cut globally, with the UK price now £279, down from £319 at launch. The most common sticking point seems to be not the price, but Siri’s inability to answer questions.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-12/apple-s-stumbling-homepod-isn-t-the-hot-seller-company-wanted
XR
Magic Leap’s XR glasses are available to the public (in the US) from AT&T stores, priced at $2,295.
theverge.com/2019/3/27/18283621/att-magic-leap-one-in-store-demonstrations-boston-chicago-san-francisco-game-of-thrones
Snapchat released its first voice-activated Lens, promoting the Shazam movie.
adweek.com/digital/shazam-warner-bros-and-snapchat-created-the-apps-first-ever-voice-activated-ar-lens/
Sony announced that it’s officially licensed the 3dRudder, a foot-powered motion controller for VR games. The PSVR is doing quite well in a generally tough VR market.
blog.eu.playstation.com/2019/04/04/an-in-depth-look-at-the-3drudder-motion-controller-for-playstation-vr-launching-this-summer/
Social
Twitter added support for subtitles to videos uploaded by publishers—a win for accessibility and people with their phone volume off.
media.twitter.com/content/media-twitter/en_us/articles/blogs/2019/subtitles-now-available-in-ios-and-android.html
Snapchat is testing Status check-ins on their Snap Map view.
theverge.com/2019/4/3/18293403/snapchat-status-bitmoji-snap-map-explore
Everything Else
Amazon will release a huge open dataset of conversations, which will help other AI researchers improve their machine learning models.
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/30dc5515-3b9f-4ec2-8f2a-ac98254625c6/topical-chat-dataset-helps-researchers-address-hard-challenges-in-natural-conversation
The WhatsApp Business app for iOS is now generally available. It previously had a limited rollout in key markets.
theverge.com/2019/4/4/18295046/whatsapp-business-app-ios-release-date-features
Amazon are said to be launching over 3,000 satellites into low-Earth orbit. Project Kuiper is aimed at bringing internet connectivity to unserved and underserved areas.
theverge.com/2019/4/4/18295310/amazon-project-kuiper-satellite-internet-low-earth-orbit-facebook-spacex-starlink
The Guardian is adding clear proof of age to articles older than a year, on both its site and the Open Graph metadata displayed on social sharing sites. This is to combat viral outbreaks of older content.
theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2019/apr/02/why-were-making-the-age-of-our-journalism-clearer