[VIDEO] Rene Ritchie absolutely nails it with this take (embedded in the main Loop post) on Google Duplex and ethics. If you’ve not yet encountered Rene’s Vector podcast, this is an excellent first taste.
Interesting how on the exact same page we are. Rene’s concerns mirror my own.
Making my way through a tidal wave of content responding to the Google voice bot demo at Google I/O. We wrote about it in this post: Watch Google Assistant make a phone call to schedule an appointment. Stunning.
If you have not yet seen the demo, click over and watch it now. It’s short.
With that demo in mind, […]
Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:
To see the data Google stores on your web searches, browsing and YouTube viewing, visit the My Activity page.
You can delete individual items from this timeline by clicking on the three-dot menu top-right. You can also click the Details link in this menu to see additional information, such as other YouTube videos you watched in the same session.
Here’s a link to the My Activity page. Take a look at your options.
This is another wave of impact from the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
[VIDEO] This is the full video (embedded in the main Loop post) of the Google I/O keynote. Lots to watch here, but in particular, jump to 1:25:02 to watch Aparna Chennapragada show off Google’s latest rev of Google Maps Street View.
I love the idea of being able to use my phone inside a building (or a subway station, in this case), to get a sense of the landmarks outside the building, to help give me a sense of the direction I want to go, to help plan my route, to work out which exit to take.
Add to that the concept of VPS, which uses visual cues to help orient Google Maps when GPS is not available or not working well enough at the current location.
[H/T Scott Knaster]
Google AI blog:
Today we announce Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone. The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.
You can jump to that page and click on examples of Google Assistant using Google Duplex to make phone calls, interact with real-world people.
But the best thing to do is jump to this Verge page and watch the video of Google CEO Sundar Pichai actually running those demos. It’s incredible.
I’ve encountered two waves of thinking about this. On one hand, there’s the thinking that robots are coming for our jobs, that this technology will displace human assistants, human call centers, and that we’ll have an even larger wave of junk calls to deal with.
But on the positive side, consider this tweet:
https://twitter.com/SteveStreza/status/993950092309676032
Well worth considering the good that can come from this technology.
Also worth noting that it is 26 days until WWDC.
[VIDEO] Watch the video (embedded in the main Loop post) to get a sense of Google’s state-of-the-union in terms of augmented reality and object identification. The big move Google made is promoting this technology to the Camera app, giving up precious screen real estate to a Google Lens button.
Augmented reality is one area where Apple has held its own, perhaps even moved ahead of Google in some ways. But this exposure of the Google Lens platform at the highest level is a strategic move by Google.
26 days until WWDC.
Space.com:
The most-viewed eclipse in history had an unexpected witness: A Google Street View car drove right through the path of totality, offering a surprising celestial treat for visitors scoping out the event in Maryland Heights, Missouri.
The intrepid car captured the darkened sky, streetlamps flickering on and even skywatching pedestrians on the vehicle’s travels through the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse in August.
Follow the headline link and check out the images. Pretty cool. Funny to think of that driver making their way through the streets, either oblivious to the major even unfolding as they drove, or so committed to their job that they just kept going without stopping to take it all in.
Under the topic “My account is sending spam emails”, this from a giant, ever-growing thread in Google’s Gmail product forum:
My email account has sent out 3 spam emails in the past hour to a list of about 10 addresses that I don’t recongnize. I changed my password immediately after the first one, but then it happened again 2 more times. The subject of the emails is weight loss and growth supplements for men advertisements. I have reported them as spam. Please help, what else can I do to ensure my account isn’t compromised??
This is followed by a wave of people with similar experiences. Making my way through the thread, it appears that this is a weakness in a specific DNS implementation, a hole in the system that makes spoofing via Canadian national telecommunications company Telus open to anyone.
This from Telus’ official Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/TELUSsupport/status/988060048843657216
And see this Hacker News post for more of a deep dive.
Another example of how delicate our tech infrastructure can be.
The Guardian:
Google has unveiled a new messaging system, Chat, an attempt to replace SMS, unify Android’s various messaging services and beat Apple’s iMessage and Facebook’s WhatsApp with the help of mobile phone operators.
Unlike traditional texting, or SMS, most modern messaging services – such as Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or Apple’s iMessage – are so-called over-the-top (OTT) services, which circumvent the mobile phone operator by sending messages over the internet.
Chat is a successor to SMS:
Instead of using OTT, it is based on rich communication services (RCS), a successor to SMS (short message standard), which has been used by people all over the world since 1992 and is still the fallback for most.
And:
With Chat, Google is unifying all the disparate versions of RCS under one interoperable standard that will work across networks, smartphones and operating systems. In doing so it hopes to take the surefire nature of SMS – anyone can send anyone else with a phone a message without them requiring a specific account or app – and bring it up-to-date with all the features modern chat demands.
On the potential for Chat killing iMessage, I defer to this excellent comment from The Overspill:
if Google even looks as though it is positioning this as a way to “kill iMessage”, Apple will never support it, and if Apple doesn’t support it then operators are going to wonder why they’re letting Google screw up their golden goose, and they won’t support it after all. Google can preload it on Android phones, but that’s not “killing iMessage”; it’s “providing an alternative to iMessage”, which WhatsApp and latterly Facebook Messenger have done for years without “killing” iMessage.
And John Gruber’s take on the same topic, different article:
It is unconscionable for Google to back a new protocol that isn’t end-to-end encrypted. End-to-end encryption is table stakes for any new communication platform today. Apple should ignore this — if it’s not secure it should be a non-starter.
I agree with all of the above. I don’t see any danger to iMessage. But I do see this meshing with Google/Android’s place in the market. Chat’s penetration will likely be at the base of the pyramid, the larger, lower priced, smaller margin part of the market. Apple’s sweet spot has always been about halfway up the pyramid: smaller, but higher priced, with larger margins.
Note also that here’s another place where Amazon has no seat at the table. With no mobile phone of their own, Alexa can send a text via the Internet, but has to ride on iOS or Android infrastructure when out and about.
In a nutshell, the survey’s top 3:
The survey was implemented by SurveyMonkey.
What I’d really love to see is some detail on people’s thinking on this. What is the positive impact from Amazon? Is it about getting goods so quickly and reliably? Amazon Echo and Alexa? Something else?
And is Google’s positive mostly about search?
I also wonder if Apple would have won this survey hands down 8 years ago, when the iPhone was still exploding but Android hadn’t quite taken off yet. Interesting.
Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider:
Apple’s U.S. customers installed 45 new iPhone apps in 2017, a growth of 10 percent over last year, while Services revenue from In-App Purchases and Subscriptions expanded by 23 percent–driven by games, music and video streaming and dating services. And overall, Apple’s U.S. App Store customers drove significantly higher revenue per user ($58) than Google Play ($38).
Daniel walks through the details in this SensorTower smartphone device analysis.
Posted by Google’s Communications & Public Affairs team.
Google Developer Blog:
We’re turning down support for goo.gl over the coming weeks and replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). FDLs are smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app. We’re excited to grow and improve the product going forward. While most features of goo.gl will eventually sunset, all existing links will continue to redirect to the intended destination.
And:
Starting April 13, 2018, anonymous users and users who have never created short links before today will not be able to create new short links via the goo.gl console. If you are looking to create new short links, we recommend you use Firebase Dynamic Links or check out popular services like Bitly and Ow.ly as an alternative.
If you have existing goo.gl short links, you can continue to use all features of goo.gl console for a period of one year, until March 30, 2019, when we will discontinue the console.
I can only imagine there’s a subtlety to this change, something that brings traffic through Google in a more useful manner than goo.gl did.
A possible clue:
URL Shortener has been a great tool that we’re proud to have built. As we look towards the future, we’re excited about the possibilities of Firebase Dynamic Links, particularly when it comes to dynamic platform detection and links that survive the app installation process.
Interesting. Have to learn more about Firebase Dynamic Links.
This time, we’re talking Google, not Facebook. These links come from this Twitter thread posted by Dylan Curran. Good stuff.
Jump into your browser and click:
This link shows you the location data Google keeps on you. At some point, I purposely set Location History to off, so my Google Timeline is empty.
This link shows your Google and YouTube search and other activity. There’s a ton of info here.
This link shows the third party apps that have access to your Google account. Definitely check this one for all your Google accounts.
Your YouTube history. This says a lot about you. Very valuable to advertisers.
There’s a lot more. Step through the thread. Or download your Google data using this link.
Tyler Dukes, WRAL, Raleigh, North Carolina, reporting on two unrelated murders:
In March 2017, months after investigations began into both shootings, separate detectives on each case, one day apart, employed an innovative strategy in criminal investigations.
On a satellite image, they drew shapes around the crime scenes, marking the coordinates on the map. Then they convinced a Wake County judge they had enough probable cause to order Google to hand over account identifiers on every single cell phone that crossed the digital cordon during certain times.
And on reactions from defense attorneys and privacy advocates:
They’re mixed on how law enforcement turns to Google’s massive cache of user data, especially without a clear target in mind. And they’re concerned about the potential to snag innocent users, many of whom might not know just how closely the company tracks their every move.
To get a sense of just how much location tracking Google does, check out this Quartz post from last November:
Many people realize that smartphones track their locations. But what if you actively turn off location services, haven’t used any apps, and haven’t even inserted a carrier SIM card?
Even if you take all of those precautions, phones running Android software gather data about your location and send it back to Google when they’re connected to the internet, a Quartz investigation has revealed.
According to this story, and others I’ve read, Google can track your location, even if you take out your SIM card. Amazing.
Read both of these stories. They are riveting and chilling.
[VIDEO] Google Maps blog:
We’ve brought the richness of Google Maps to the Unity game engine. We turn buildings, roads, and parks into GameObjects in Unity, where developers can then add texture, style, and customization to match the look and feel of your game. This means that they can focus on building rich, immersive gameplay without the overhead of scaffolding a global-scale game world.
This is fascinating. Google has taken their real world maps data and offered it up to game developers. No need to invent a world for your game, just use the real one.
To truly get this, watch the video embedded in the main Loop post. Is this a potential path for Apple and Augmented Reality?
When you ask Siri, Alexa, or Google a question, you have to say the trigger phrase, “Hey Siri”, “Alexa”, or “OK Google”. When you want to follow-up, you have to repeat that trigger phrase.
But that is about to change.
Amazon has rolled out a beta of something it calls Follow-up Mode. From this Amazon Help page:
When you turn on Follow-Up Mode, you can make more requests without repeating the wake word. Follow-up mode is available on all hands-free Alexa-enabled devices. The blue indicator light on the Echo device remains on for a few seconds, letting you know that Alexa is active and ready for your next request.
The idea is, after you say “Alexa”, Alexa keeps listening for a follow-up query until it times out. Notably, follow-up mode does not kick in when:
I’d think this would be relatively simple for Apple to implement for Siri. There’s certainly value when you want to do a sequence of things. But I also think it’d be a big help for Siri’s context analysis, making it more likely that two queries in a row are connected in some way, like so:
Or:
You get the idea. Conversational context is a bit of a holy grail. As is, all three (Siri, Alexa, Google) are still infants, still learning the most rudimentary rules of conversational memory.
Motherboard:
In 2010, Google stunned the telecom sector by announcing the company would be jumping into the broadband business. Under the brand banner of Google Fiber, the search giant proclaimed it would be lighting a much-needed fire under the traditionally uncompetitive broadband industry, delivering ultra-fast gigabit connections across the United States.
When I first heard about Google Fiber, I was thrilled. Thrilled, mostly, with the idea of competition and what it could mean for consumers: cheaper pricing and way faster speeds.
But:
While Google Fiber did make some impressive early headway in cities like Austin, the company ran into numerous deployment headaches. Fearing competition, incumbent ISPs like AT&T and Comcast began a concerted effort to block the company’s access to essential utility poles, even going so far as to file lawsuits against cities like Nashville that tried to expedite the process.
That sort of reaction should not have been a surprise to Google. Of course incumbent ISPs will claw and scratch to protect their territories and revenue streams.
I think the real threat to big cable, at least in the short term, will be 5G deployment, wireless technologies that do not depend on the telephone poles and buried wires/fiber. With an unlimited data plan and video streaming speeds, the real cord cutting can truly take hold.
Google Fiber might have missed their moment.
[VIDEO] This is an amazing video (embedded in the main Loop post). Hit play, then click and drag to look around as the Waymo self driving car takes you for a ride. Note that this only seems to work in a desktop browser, not in iOS. If anyone figures out how to get this to work on an iOS device, please ping me and I’ll update the post.
I’d love to have this experience in person.
UPDATE: To run on iOS device, check this tweet.
Mark Bergen, Bloomberg:
On any given day, there could be a half dozen autonomous cars mapping the same street corner in Silicon Valley. These cars, each from a different company, are all doing the same thing: building high-definition street maps, which may eventually serve as an on-board navigation guide for driverless vehicles.
And:
Autonomous cars require powerful sensors to see and advanced software to think. They especially need up-to-the-minute maps of every conceivable roadway to move. Whoever owns the most detailed and expansive version of these maps that vehicles read will own an asset that could be worth billions.
The motivation for the next maps war is clear. Billions of dollars at stake. This article is a fascinating look at the players and the technological approaches to capturing the next generation of maps.
Just a taste:
The companies working on maps for autonomous vehicles are taking two different approaches. One aims to create complete high-definition maps that will let the driverless cars of the future navigate all on their own; another creates maps piece-by-piece, using sensors in today’s vehicles that will allow cars to gradually automate more and more parts of driving.
And:
These self-driving maps are far more demanding than older digital ones, prompting huge investments across Detroit, Silicon Valley and China. “An autonomous vehicle wants that to be as precise, accurate and up-to-date as possible,” said Bryan Salesky, who leads Argo AI LLC, a year-old startup backed by a $1 billion investment by Ford. The “off-the-shelf solution doesn’t quite exist.”
And:
It’s an expensive ordeal with a payoff that’s years, if not decades, away. “Even if you could drive your own vehicles around and hit every road in the world, how do you update?” asked Dan Galves, a spokesman for Mobileye. “You’d have to send these vehicles around again.”
Unlike conventional digital maps, self-driving maps require almost-constant updates. The slightest variation on the road—a construction zone that pops up overnight, or a bit of debris—could stop a driverless car in its tracks. “It’s the freak thing that happens that’s going to make autonomous not work,” said McNally, the analyst.
Fascinating read.
Arturrr:
In early 2017, a conversation with yet another Waze fanboy finally nudged me to start a navigation app experiment. I was skeptical that the Alphabet owned company could meaningfully best its parent’s home grown Google Maps. I was also curious whether Apple Maps had discovered competence since its iOS 6 release.
I thus set out to answer three questions:
- Which navigation app estimates the shortest travel time?
- How does each app over/underestimate travel times?
- Which navigation app actually gets you to your destination most quickly?
Which led to these three conclusions:
Very interesting. Obviously, this is a relatively small sample size. It’d be interesting if there was some way to crowd-source this experiment to come up with a map overlay that showed which solution worked best in a specific area.
Google Labs:
Using Google data, visualized by Google News Lab with design studio Polygraph, we can begin to quantify how these food trends vary across the country. Based on aggregated, anonymized, and differentially private data from users who have opted in to Google Location History, we ranked cities and counties by their most popular cuisine.
These maps are pretty interesting. Worth a scroll-through, even if you just look at the images.
Up until this week, the most used version of Android was Marshmallow, which shipped in October of 2015. That has now changed.
As you can see in this official Android pie chart, Android Nougat (which shipped in August 2016) has just squeaked by, with an adoption rate of 28.5% (as opposed to Marshmallow’s 28.1%).
Here’s the current (as of January 18th) iOS adoption picture:
iOS 11, which shipped this past September, is used on 65% of devices. Fragmentation is still a big issue for Android. If nothing else, those old versions of Android carry the malware susceptibilities that, presumably, have been patched in the most recent version of Android, called Oreo.
The capper? Oreo was released one month before iOS 11 and has an adoption rate of about 1%.
Here ya go:
https://twitter.com/davehamilton/status/960271158213009409
I asked Siri what she thought about Google Max and Amazon Echo and got a lot of generic responses. Interesting that Google created such a specific, tailored response to HomePod.
Peter Cao, 9to5Mac:
Less than a day after the announcement, YouTube TV is now available on Apple’s tvOS platform. The cable-cutter streaming TV service starts at $35/month, with no contracts, and allows users to stream TV from their iPhone and now, Apple TV.
I love the way YouTube TV shared the news:
https://twitter.com/YouTubeTV/status/959195619507122177
Another solid option for cord cutters.
The tension here, as it usually is, is the balance between past sales and future projections.
Now on to the race to $1 trillion. This is all about market capitalization, or market cap, for short. Market cap is a company’s share price times the number of shares outstanding. Here’s an Investopedia article on the concept.
As of this writing, Apple’s market cap is $860B. That’s based on a price to earning ratio of 18.25. That P/E ratio is on the high end of middling, certainly a reasonable number.
Amazon’s market cap is $696B, with a P/E ratio of 364.98. Yes, you read that correctly. In effect, Apple’s stock is grounded in actual results, while Amazon’s stock is more of a flier, based on growth and the thinking that Amazon is going to eat the world.
And Alphabet? Hot on Apple’s tail with a market cap of $811B and a P/E of 39.09. Right in the middle.
Who will get to $1 trillion first? Might happen this year.
Want to check these numbers for yourself? Go to Google and type “Apple’s market cap” or just “AAPL” and Google will show the relevant details.
From App Annie’s quarterly analysis of the iOS App Store and Google Play revenues.
Chart 1 shows app downloads for each store, in billions:
As you can see, Google Play has about 2-1/2 times the number of downloads as the iOS App Store.
Now let’s look at revenue:
The conclusion from this chart? Customers for the iOS App Store spend almost twice as much as Google Play customers.
That’s a pretty big swing.
Google has a long history of using puzzles to tease and communicate. Their latest puzzle sequence tells you about this years Google I/O conference.
It all started with this tweet:
https://www.twitter.com/googledevs/status/956074091676688384
If you are interested in solving this, start by deciphering the image in the tweet above. If you get stuck, or just want to read through the sequence of solve steps, follow the headline link to a sequence of clues.
Here’s a link to the Google Arts & Culture app.
Once you install the app, launch it, then scroll down, just a bit, to the section with the white box that asks, “Is your portrait in a museum?”
Tap to get started, give Google access to your camera, take a selfie, then let the app do its thing. My sense is that the matching algorithm keys in on your hair, including any facial hair.
Interesting idea. Wondering what Google does with all the selfies it harvests.
Gruber on AMP.
Terrific explainer, gets right to the core of the problem (AMP versions of published content end up on Google’s servers, under Google control, and not on publishers’ own servers).
What a headline. I had to trim it for our Twitter plugin.