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.
Microsoft might add ‘game mode’ to Windows 10 for maximum gaming performance – The Verge (Dec 28, 2016)
This isn’t coming out of left field – one of the big consumer features of Windows 10 has been its gaming emphasis, so this is a natural evolution. Gaming has been one of the big consumer success points for Microsoft amid broader questions about its strategy and especially monetization among consumers going forward.
via Microsoft might add ‘game mode’ to Windows 10 for maximum gaming performance – The Verge
Counterpoints to The Hardware Apocalypse – Steven Sinofsky on Twitter (Dec 28, 2016)
This is a tweet storm in 13 parts, and a response to Farhad Manjoo’s gadget apocalypse piece from early December. Sinofsky makes several cogent arguments about the proper role of gadgets (though I suspect he may be using the term a little differently from Farhad). As I said in linking to Farhad’s original piece, there’s some truth there but it’s not all quite right.
via Steven Sinofsky ॐ on Twitter
Amazon tries to recreate Prime Day magic with the first-ever Digital Day sales event | TechCrunch (Dec 28, 2016)
Amazon has used Prime Day as well as regular Gold Box and holiday sales as ways to boost sales of physical goods, but it’s now trying something similar with digital goods. Media sales (incorporating both physical and digital media) account for about 18-20% of total revenue for Amazon, but have been growing far more slowly than general physical merchandise, so deals like this are intended to boost that growth, especially driven by new devices sold over the holidays. However, as with most of Amazon’s sales, there are a few loss leaders here designed to drive sales of many other items sold at Amazon’s usual margins.
via Amazon tries to recreate Prime Day magic with the first-ever Digital Day sales event | TechCrunch
Magic Leap announces S. Fla expansion, 725 new jobs – South Florida Business Journal (Dec 28, 2016)
Magic Leap has been in the news a lot because it continues to be incredibly secretive about what it’s actually building, its demo videos have turned out to be entirely CGI, and it’s seen some recent executive departures. But this announcement is a sign that as far as the company is concerned, it’s full steam ahead. Magic Leap continues to be one of the biggest (potential) names in AR, while much of the attention is on VR, while Apple also appears to be leaning towards AR, so it’s an important test of whether that bet turns out to be a good one.
via Magic Leap announces S. Fla expansion, 725 new jobs – South Florida Business Journal
Yahoo’s Data Breaches Unlikely to Derail Verizon Deal – Bloomberg (Dec 27, 2016)
This is an interesting take on the repeated Yahoo breaches and the implications, and it goes along with my gut sense that people have very short memories when it comes to security and privacy breaches. There’s lots of outrage in the short term, but it blows over very quickly, as any Google Trends search relating to a major breach will tell you. The hits keep coming with Yahoo, but ultimately I expect Verizon’s acquisition will still go through.
via Yahoo’s Data Breaches Unlikely to Derail Verizon Deal – Bloomberg
Warm Takes on Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 – Medium (Dec 27, 2016)
Part of the recent version of the Apple is Doomed narrative has Microsoft in the ascendant, ready to eat its lunch. As with the rest of the narrative, that’s overblown, and this piece does a nice job of highlighting the challenges for Microsoft in winning over Mac users. It’s also a good entry in another couple of narratives – Hardware is Hard, and Microsoft and Hardware, pouring some cold water on the plaudits for Microsoft’s recent hardware efforts.
via Warm Takes on Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 – Medium
Amazon Echo and Google Home were smash hits this holiday season: voice developers see major holiday growth | VoiceLabs (Dec 27, 2016)
This data is purely directional, but it confirms what you’d instinctively suspect – that both Amazon Echo and Google Home sold well over the holidays. The gifting phenomenon with these devices suggests a mainstreaming which is new to this space over the past year – Amazon’s massive growth in holiday sales was testament to this too. All the same, it’s obvious that Echo far outsold Home.
Building Ford’s Next-Generation Autonomous Development Vehicle – Medium (Dec 27, 2016)
Many of the major auto manufacturers are underway with their own testing of increasingly autonomous vehicles, though they’re still a long way from production – Ford has said it intends to provide such vehicles in 2021 for ride-sharing/hailing services. But this is an increasingly crowded space and one of the biggest questions is which manufacturers will make their own versus licensing technology from Alphabet’s Waymo or others.
via Building Ford’s Next-Generation Autonomous Development Vehicle – Medium
Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them – ProPublica (Dec 27, 2016)
The headline doesn’t do the focus of the article justice – the point the article makes is that Facebook buys in offline data sources to supplement the data it collects itself, to create a fuller picture of its users when it comes to targeting ads. It isn’t transparent with its users about this, however, which some consumer advocacy groups find bothersome. The fact is, this data is gathered and used pervasively throughout the consumer marketing industry, but it’s a different flavor of data gathering and targeting from what we’re used to with Facebook.
via Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them – ProPublica
Flurry Analytics: Apple devices were most popular mobile holiday gifts – Business Insider (Dec 27, 2016)
Until Apple reports its results for the December quarter, this kind of data is the best insight we’re going to get into how its quarter has gone. The answer appears to be pretty good, at least as it relates to iPad and iPhone sales, and taken together with other data on Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods sales, it’s looking like a pretty healthy quarter overall.
via Flurry Analytics: Apple devices were most popular mobile holiday gifts – Business Insider
T-Mobile rolls out battery shutdown update to remaining Galaxy Note 7s | AndroidAuthority (Dec 27, 2016)
This is the beginning of the end for the Note7 saga, which began all the way back in early September. The four major US carriers, starting with T-Mobile, are rolling out what are effectively kill updates that will shut down the remaining Note7 devices in use. Over 90% of those devices have already been turned in, so this is really about capturing the holdouts. This is also the beginning of the end for the PR nightmare that’s kept this story in the news far longer than Samsung would have liked.
via T-Mobile rolls out battery shutdown update to remaining Galaxy Note 7s | AndroidAuthority
Amazon 2016 Holiday Shopping Press Release – Amazon PR (Dec 27, 2016)
This is classic Amazon PR – lots of superlatives and relative statements, but nothing concrete, with a smattering of slightly ridiculous “fun facts” about how many cookies could be made with the KitchenAid mixers sold. But there are key points worth noting, including the 9x increase in Echo sales, suggesting a mainstreaming of the product, and the rapid growth in Prime Now. Certainly more fodder for the Amazon dominating E-commerce narrative.
via Amazon – Press Room – Press Release
YouTube Video Effects: Job Offer Promises Better Recording Experience | Variety (Dec 27, 2016)
This is an interesting potential new direction for YouTube, which would be moving into competition with Snapchat and other apps which allow users to apply filters. YouTube already does some of this, and this article is merely inferring this future direction from a job posting, but it seems a reasonable assumption and a logical next step for YouTube. The big question is whether users will want to use YouTube for the kind of casual sharing that Snapchat makes so attractive with its ephemeral nature.
via YouTube Video Effects: Job Offer Promises Better Recording Experience | Variety
Amazon Echo and the Hot Tub Murder — The Information (Dec 27, 2016)
This is one of those nightmare stories that appears to validate lots of people’s concerns about having always-listening devices in the home. As always, the real story is less concerning – Amazon’s Echo doesn’t store everything it hears, just what follows the Alexa prompt. More broadly, however, home automation gear and the data it creates has been used in this case, and will be used in others – a good reminder that if you use services that create and store data, that data may become available to others too, whether hackers or law enforcement.
via Amazon Echo and the Hot Tub Murder — The Information
Chinese investors buy stake in mapping firm HERE | Reuters (Dec 27, 2016)
HERE is Nokia’s former mapping division, which was sold to a consortium of carmakers in 2015. China is one of the most important markets for carmakers and an important new market for HERE’s map data too, so this seems a great strategic fit. And it also allows the Chinese backers access to global mapping and navigation data, which will be useful in their expansion outside China.
via Chinese investors buy stake in mapping firm HERE | Reuters
Commentary: A new vision for self-driving cars – John Krafcik & Steve Adler (Dec 27, 2016)
A transparent attempt to shape the narrative around Waymo and Alphabet’s self-driving car technology, in an editorial jointly written by the head of Waymo and the mayor of Austin. It’s interesting to contrast Uber and Waymo’s relationships with municipalities – Waymo has largely gone out of its way to work with them, while Uber has a more mixed record (notably in San Francisco recently).
via Commentary: A new vision for self-driving cars
Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety (Dec 27, 2016)
It’s clear that Amazon has felt the need to compete with Netflix’s global launch almost a year ago, but its own global offering is sparse and inconsistent. The lack of localization (or in some cases any local offering at all) is one of the most overlooked issues in consumer tech – so many services we take for granted in the US simply don’t exist or are pale imitations of themselves in other markets. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix have all done well to make their offerings at least somewhat global, but Amazon is still very early in this game.
via Amazon Prime Video’s Global Launch Looks Soft, But It’s a Game-changer | Variety
Advertising’s Moral Struggle: Is Online Reach Worth the Hurt? – The New York Times (Dec 26, 2016)
This is an interesting side effect of the fake news phenomenon, coupled with programmatic advertising – marketers advertise indiscriminately, leaving decisions about placement to computers, but this has backfired in the case of both fake news and alt-right news websites. The repercussions will be felt for some time, and will affect Google and many others in the process.
via Advertising’s Moral Struggle: Is Online Reach Worth the Hurt? – The New York Times
Apple Publishes Its First Artificial Intelligence Paper (Dec 26, 2016)
Apple announced at a conference a few weeks ago that it would begin allowing its AI researchers to publish, a move intended to attract those in the field for whom this is standard practice. This is also part of Apple’s broader push to establish its AI credentials, countering the popular narrative that it’s behind big competitors like Google and Microsoft.
via Apple Publishes Its First Artificial Intelligence Paper
Report: Snapchat acquires Israeli AR firm Cimagine Media (Dec 26, 2016)
This is a fascinating story in the context of what Snap has done recently with Spectacles. Future Spectacles hardware could bring AR capabilities, but of course AR could also be baked into the Snapchat app in new ways (arguably today’s filters are already a form of AR). Lots of potential here.
via Report: Snapchat acquires Israeli AR firm Cimagine Media