Important Note
Tech Narratives was a subscription website, which offered expert commentary on the day's top tech news from Jan Dawson, along with various other features, for $10/month. As of Monday October 16, 2017, it will no longer be updated. An archive of past content will remain available for the time being. I've written more about this change in the post immediately below, and also here.
Amazon Delays Opening of Cashier-Less Store to Work Out Kinks – WSJ (Mar 27, 2017)
There’s a certain amount of schadenfreude around about this story this morning, both from tech observers and I suspect from other retailers smirking at Amazon’s apparent inability to deliver on its store of the future concept. The idea of tracking products as they’re taken off shelves, placed in baskets and then ultimately carried out of a shop has seemed enormously ambitious to me from the start, because there just seemed to be so many ways it could go wrong. And now it seems that Amazon is holding up the launch of its Amazon Go store to regular customers because the technology can’t handle more than 20 people in the store at once, people who move too quickly around the store, or products which get moved from their original locations. These all seem like obvious bugs to have been worked out early on in development, and also ones which will all get worse when you go from friendly employee testers to real-world customers, so it’s a bit baffling Amazon would have whiffed on this so badly this late in the game. I’m very curious what happens from here on: whether we see Amazon launch just a little later than planned, with the bugs fixed, whether it launches despite the bugs (and risk of under- or over-charging customers), or whether it keeps the store employee-only for quite a bit longer. The last scenario seems most likely at this point.
via WSJ
Eric Feinberg, the Man Behind Google’s Brand-Safety Crisis – AdAge (Mar 27, 2017)
This is a fascinating little piece on a guy who claims to have technology that would help Google from showing ads on problematic videos and websites, and who has apparently been responsible for raising the issue with reporters. Unfortunately, there’s fairly little evidence of that connection in this article, and I haven’t been able to establish one independently. But it would be striking if a guy trying to sell his technology was behind this crisis for Google and YouTube. None of that is to say that the issues aren’t real, but as we all know none of this is particularly new, so it would help explain why all this has suddenly come to a head now.
via AdAge
Google’s AI Explosion in One Chart – MIT Technology Review (Mar 27, 2017)
One of the big problems with evaluating which company is ahead or behind in a field like AI is that there are few external signals – companies work on a variety of AI projects behind closed doors in their R&D departments, and many of them only surface when they’re built into products and services they bring to market. Some have suggested using patents as a way to measure leadership, and this article cites publication in scientific journals as another. Certainly, Google’s publishing is a sign that there’s lots of work going on, but it also reflects the (deliberately) quasi-academic culture at DeepMind, its big AI acquisition, while Apple is also slowly moving in this direction with regard to AI specifically. Neither patent filings nor academic papers, however, have a direct connection to using AI to provide better products and services, and that remains very difficult to measure.
After the London terror attack, a top U.K. official says Facebook needs to open up WhatsApp – Recode (Mar 27, 2017)
This is a worrying (though not altogether unexpected) resurfacing of the arguments from early 2016, when the FBI was trying to get into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. In this case, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd (whose role has no direct counterpart in the US, but is responsible for domestic law enforcement and counter-terrorism among many other things) has made calls for WhatsApp to “open up” and specifically referred to encryption. That’s because WhatsApp was allegedly one of the apps used by the terrorist behind last week’s attack in London, though there’s no evidence yet that he used it to plan the attack or coordinate with others. The bigger issue, as with last year’s Apple-FBI fight, is of course that once the government can get in, there’s no guarantee others won’t use the same methods, whether that’s because of hacks like the one that hit Cellebrite a few weeks ago, or exposures of government tools like the Wikileaks CIA hack. Encryption is a fact of life at this point, and essential for secure communication and protection of privacy for millions of law-abiding users, and no government back door can solve the law enforcement problem without also compromising that essential function. And the Rudd quote in the closing paragraph of this story suggests she doesn’t actually understand the FBI-Apple situation at all, which is not surprising from a government official but worrisome nonetheless.
via Recode
Apple and Facebook join race to build augmented reality glasses – Financial Times (Mar 27, 2017)
There’s not a ton here that’s new about Apple and Facebook’s efforts, but the article does share some new details about Magic Leap, which is said to be getting ready to launch this year at a price point north of $1000. As I’ve said before, for all the complaints from Magic Leap that people are underestimating its technology, until it actually shows more than a few hand-picked people, those complaints are unreasonable. This is a company that has massively hyped its own product (including releasing rendered rather than actual footage) while refusing to share any actual details about its product. There certainly are people (some of them investors) who appear to be very impressed by it, but not until it launches will mainstream tech reporters and others know whether the product lives up to the hype. In the meantime, other companies like Apple and Facebook are ramping up their efforts, and even though Magic Leap may well beat them to market, it’s a small company with no brand recognition, and it will have to blow people away en masse if it’s to take a meaningful lead in the market when it launches.
via FT
Samsung confirms the Note 7 is coming back as a refurbished device – The Verge (Mar 27, 2017)
This feels like a huge misstep, especially announced the week of the S8 launch, which could otherwise have been the moment Samsung finally put the Note 7 debacle behind it. While the desire to minimize the environmental impact is admirable, and Samsung would no doubt benefit financially from refurbishing the phones, it would have been better off simply doing what it originally said it would and abandoning the line entirely and merely recouping parts. Another story that both keeps the Note7 in the news and raises the prospect of people actually buying them again (even if under a different name) just seems like a terrible tradeoff to make for those benefits. Ironically, this was the week when Samsung also finally issued a software update which will kill the remaining devices still in use in the US, yet another milestone in moving past this whole mess.
via The Verge
Facebook Messenger update helps you keep tabs on your friend’s location – Mashable (Mar 27, 2017)
Google introduced its own location-sharing feature last week, but Facebook’s is far more limited – it works within the context of a Messenger interaction, and only for an hour at a time, which feels a good bit less prone to accidental over-sharing. It also feels more useful in the messaging context, where you’d be likely to share messages with someone about meeting up, than in a Maps app, which might mean dipping out of a conversation to check the location (even if it might be useful when meeting at a new spot). As I mentioned last week, it’s interesting to see location sharing making a comeback when both Google and Facebook had previously backed away from this kind of thing over privacy concerns – that suggests a certain confidence over privacy issues that wasn’t there a few years ago, although both companies still seem to be approaching this more narrowly than in the past.
via Mashable
AMC plans ad-free streaming service for cable subscribers – sources – Reuters (Mar 24, 2017)
This is an interesting wrinkle on the theme of premium TV channels going direct to consumer. In this case, AMC Networks is talking about going through the pay TV companies rather than around them, which would ensure high-quality distribution but would also limit it to those audiences already paying for traditional TV services, whereas its stated target is the millennials who famously don’t pay for those services. The price being talked about also seems very high: the AMC network is pretty cheap for pay TV distributors – one recent figure I saw suggested under 50 cents per month – so charging $5-7 just to take out ads seems steep. As a company, AMC makes a little over half its revenue from fees, and the rest mostly from ads, so charging ten times as much as it charges distributors just to remove ads doesn’t feel quite right. But it’s good to see the traditional cable networks experimenting with a variety of models as they try to stem the tide of both cord cutting and cord shaving, even if this doesn’t feel like it’s quite going to hit the spot.
via Reuters
Netflix: The Monster That’s Eating Hollywood – WSJ (Mar 24, 2017)
The headline here is indicative of the language used by some TV execs in the article, but that rhetoric feels pretty overblown, along with the suggestions that Netflix is somehow singlehandedly doubling the fees actors ask for or squeezing other players out of the business. Yes, both Amazon and Netflix are raising prices for acquisitions of indie movies at Sundance, but no, they’re not having that dramatic effect on the entire industry, not least because they’re still just a fraction of the size of the industry as a whole. The reality is that competition has been intensifying for years because the industry is getting tighter in an age of shrinking audiences and higher standards, and Netflix and Amazon aren’t to blame. Having said all that, the article is likely indicative of a souring of relationships between Netflix and traditional media companies, and if that continues we’ll likely see more content pulled from Netflix and other SVOD services, which just validates Netflix’s massive investment in original content which no-one can take away.
via WSJ
Google details Talk transition, SMS removal for Hangouts, other G Suite changes – 9to5Google (Mar 24, 2017)
This has been a heck of a long time coming – Google’s various messaging apps have been a confusing mess for ages now, and it’s good to see some rationalization of the portfolio and a bit more clarity about which bits will survive and what they’ll be used for. SMS-style messaging now belongs in the Messages app, which doesn’t have an equivalent on the desktop, while the ages-old Google Talk will finally be retired in favor of Hangouts, which will carry over some but not all of its functionality, with the rest going away. Some users will no doubt be annoyed at some of the lost functionality, but on the whole this should be a good thing for users. Of course, there is still Google Voice, which combines elements of services also found in Hangouts and Messages, so this doesn’t clear things up completely.
via 9to5Google
Tech community “dumbfounded” by Mnuchin’s dismissal of AI impact on jobs – Axios (Mar 24, 2017)
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in an interview that he felt AI taking Americans’ jobs was 50-100 years away, and it wasn’t a concern in the present. Predictably, a whole raft of tech folk who work on AI and are very much aware of jobs being lost to AI today reacted rather poorly to that statement. At best, this feels like yet another government official who doesn’t have a good grasp on technology, something that’s been a worry with the current administration since before it took office. But at worst, this means the government is far less likely to take any meaningful action on helping protect American jobs that might be lost to AI or to retraining workers so that they can find new ones if their old ones go away. Whether you believe either of those things are the government’s job or not is largely a matter of your philosophy on the proper role of government, but at the very least you’d want the government to have a realistic sense of what kind of impact AI will have on jobs and when, in order to make an informed decision.
via Axios
YouTube Details Fixes While Additional Advertisers Join Boycott (Mar 24, 2017)
This story just keeps going, and in some ways it’s more of the same, but these two pieces are worth calling out specifically. The Bloomberg piece mentions a memo sent to advertisers late this week providing more detail than the blog post on Monday, though sadly the article doesn’t provide many of those details. The Journal piece, meanwhile, provides lots of examples of ads from big brands still showing up next to bad videos, with some of those brands adding their names to the list of boycotters. Importantly, the changes in the memo are supposed to be implemented by Sunday, so if advertisers are happy with the changes, we could see something of a return to normal early next week. As per my Techpinions piece yesterday, I still think that’s something of a long shot, although I argued that none of these brands really want to abandon YouTube or Google permanently, and will likely return to the fold once they extract some concessions over data and analytics. But if those fixes don’t go down well, and there continue to be widespread and easily found examples of ads showing against bad videos, then this could drag on for months.
via Bloomberg (memo) and WSJ (bad ads still appearing, and more advertisers bail)
Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube are bidding to stream the NFL’s Thursday night games – Recode (Mar 24, 2017)
When Twitter won these rights last time around in their first year as a separate set from television rights, it turned out to be something very different from what many of us expected. Rather than a massive splurge on a very valuable set of rights, it turned out that the winner merely got the right to show the games along with advertising mostly already sold by broadcasters, meaning there was very little additional revenue opportunity, and as such Twitter got the rights for a paltry $10 million. These NFL games have actually been a good fit with Twitter’s overall live strategy, which has mostly been focused on winning audiences rather than lots of new revenue, but it seems others are interested in taking another crack this year. It would obviously fit well with Facebook’s recent push into professionally produced live video, but also with YouTube’s recent investment in e-sports rights and with Amazon’s foray into TV bundles and Twitch video streaming. It’s less of a good fit with Apple’s current focus in the TV space, so it’s not surprising that its name doesn’t appear here. I’ll be very interested to see if the NFL is pitching the same kind of package as last time or whether the winning bidder will have the right to sell more of its own ads this time around.
via Recode
Twitter might build a paid subscription service for power users – The Verge (Mar 23, 2017)
I’m in two minds about this report. On the one hand, I’ve thought for a while that some kind of premium subscription service would be a great way to allow the heaviest users of Twitter to pay for the value they get out of it (while potentially avoiding ads), and serve as a useful additional revenue stream at a time when Twitter’s ad revenue has been stagnating. On the other hand, the news that this will effectively be an enhanced version of Tweetdeck is less appealing. Tweetdeck is for a particular type of Twitter user – one who wants lots of tabs open at once with various different feeds – but that’s not all power users by any stretch. And as an app Tweetdeck has a somewhat miserable reputation for reliability – the only times I ever see it mentioned on Twitter itself are when it’s crashing on people. I’ve used it occasionally in the past, but not for some time now, not least because it’s been neglected as a native app on macOS since 2015. If this new option really is limited to and centered on Tweetdeck, it’ll have appeal mostly limited to a certain kind of power user (mostly companies, brands, and professional social media managers), but if it’s instead aimed at power users broadly and supports other endpoints too, then it’s more interesting. We’ll probably have to wait until Twitter concludes its testing to know one way or the other, though.
via The Verge
Senate Republicans voted today to kill federal privacy rules – Recode (Mar 23, 2017)
I’ll refer readers back to last week’s comment on this topic, even though the news has moved on a little. That item was about telcos lobbying for a change in laws regarding user data, whereas today’s news is about the Senate pushing through a bill that would enact the change, but the issues are the same. At root, the telcos have argued that they shouldn’t be regulated more tightly than the internet companies that already gather and sell lots of data on users, and that therefore regulations introduced last year should be overturned. Of course, both web companies and other entities like data brokers already gather, aggregate, and sell masses of user data, so there’s some merit to the argument that telcos shouldn’t be the only ones singled out here. ISPs have also argued that they’ve voluntarily agreed to codes of conduct which would bind them in similar ways without this regulation. Regardless, the optics of a move such as this bill are terrible both for the ISPs and for the (mostly Republican) senators who have backed it.
via Recode
Comcast Said to Gain Rights to Offer Web TV Service Nationwide – Bloomberg (Mar 23, 2017)
I’ve held for quite a while that there’s a game of chicken going on between the various big pay TV providers over who will be first to take a streaming version of their service nationwide, and it looks like Comcast is taking steps to ensure that it can do so if and when it decides to move forward. That’s not a guarantee that Comcast actually will do so, and indeed this piece suggests Comcast has no immediate plans on this front. But it’s clearly in a very strong position to do so, as the second largest TV provider in the US and the largest cable company, and also the pay TV provider with the strongest user interface through its X1 platform. That platform could potentially run as an app on third party boxes like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV should it choose to run a nationwide service. And there is, of course, big upside from a revenue perspective in offering its service nationally, especially as a hedge against cord cutting within its existing footprint. The downside is that such a service would be standalone, and with content costs rising as a percentage of video revenue, margins there are being squeezed. In its footprint, Comcast can offset that by charging more for broadband or up-selling voice or home automation services as part of a bundle, but that’s not possible when selling online TV as a standalone product. Still, at some point I believe Comcast and other big pay TV providers will finally take really compelling TV offerings (rather than the watered down stuff we’re seeing from Sling and DirecTV) national, and that will be a big deal.
via Bloomberg
Amazon to acquire Souq, a Middle East clone once valued at $1B, for $650M – TechCrunch (Mar 23, 2017)
This would be one of Amazon’s biggest acquisitions to date, ranking fourth behind Zappos ($1.2 billion), Twitch ($970m), and Kiva Systems ($775m) if it goes ahead at the price reported here. And given how Amazon is competing with local competitors such as Flipkart in India and Alibaba in China, it’s interesting to see it absorbing a smaller one in a region where Amazon itself has no presence. Local infrastructure is critical to Amazon’s success elsewhere, and an acquisition like this potentially gives Amazon a huge head start in the region. I could definitely see it taking out more second-tier e-commerce players in other regions like this over the next few years as a way to accelerate its international growth.
via TechCrunch
Facebook Messenger rolls out mention alerts and message Reaction emoji – TechCrunch (Mar 23, 2017)
With all the fuss about Facebook cloning Snapchat features, it’s worth remembering that not everything Facebook adds to its products is a copy of Snapchat, and this is a good example of adding features that owe more to Facebook’s core product than anyone else’s app. Given the backlash against the My Day feature added recently, it’s somewhat brave of Facebook to add yet more features (and potentially clutter) to Messenger, but these features look like they’ll add value too. And perhaps help to distract from the negative response against My Day.
via TechCrunch
Intel Consolidates its AI Teams (Mar 23, 2017)
Intel is announcing that it’s taking its various AI teams and consolidating them under Naveen Rao, who ran the AI company Nervana which Intel acquired last year. This feels like a sensible move from a company which has dabbled in AI in various parts of the organization but hasn’t become known as an AI powerhouse. Where things get slightly less credible is where Intel talks in the announcement about rallying the industry around a set of standards for AI as it has with past computational trends. Whereas Intel was a major player in personal computing, one of the examples it cites, it’s not nearly in the same position of influence with regard to AI, and so this feels like hubris rather than realism on what Intel’s role will be. Intel also talks, though, about bringing AI to more people, which sounds a lot like the “democratization of AI” message we’ve been hearing a lot from Microsoft lately, and which others including Google have also started parroting lately. This feels like it’s going to become an increasingly important theme in AI: less about individual companies owning capability and more about packaging up and making that capability available to anyone who wants to use it.
via Intel
Apple Patent Filings Show an iPhone-Powered Laptop – Tom’s Guide (Mar 23, 2017)
These things do the rounds from time to time, and it’s always worth remembering that very few of the things Apple acquires patents for actually make their way into its products. Like any sensible company that does lots of research and development work, Apple comes up with lots of ideas and patents many of them, in part for defensive reasons, but that doesn’t mean it has any plans to bring them all to market. As this article points out, this particular invention seems to fly in the face of several things Apple has said it won’t do. However, I do think we’ll see more attempts in the coming years to use smartphones and potentially eventually smaller devices like watches to power the various other gadgets around us, serving as identification devices and pulling in data and profiles from the cloud on external displays and so on. So even if I’m not convinced we’ll see this particular implementation from Apple any time soon, the overall concept isn’t totally unrealistic.
via Tom’s Guide