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.
Messenger just became the latest Facebook app to launch a Stories feature – Recode (Mar 9, 2017)
This feature has been in testing since September, but is now rolling out globally. As I’ve said previously, Facebook has done much better in cloning Snapchat successfully since it stopped trying to recreate the entire app and focused instead on features, with Instagram Stories being the standout example. It’s now rolling out Stories in various ways in its separate apps, with Messenger second to go global, and the core Facebook app likely coming next. And why not? Though I think it’s a little distasteful to see Facebook copying Snapchat so blatantly, it certainly appears to be working, and taking a feature used by a competitor with 160 million users and making it available to ten times that many seems entirely logical.
via Recode
Alarm.com and Comcast Close Icontrol Acquisition – CE Pro (Mar 9, 2017)
I got not one but two press releases yesterday from different companies saying they had closed their acquisitions of Icontrol, and that’s because Comcast and Alarm.com split what was previously one company’s assets into two and each took the piece it was most interested in. Alarm.com gets the piece that’s most similar to its existing business, which is white label smart home systems for alarm companies, while Comcast gets the part that helps manage its own existing smart home systems and similar ones for other cable companies. Both Comcast and Alarm.com are currently focused on the service model for the smart home, which I continue to think is the most promising for mainstream adoption, but the Icontrol acquisition actually gives Alarm.com a way to pursue a DIY model too, while Comcast gets a way to start licensing its home automation platform, something it already does with its X1 set top box operating system. We’re going to see lots more acquisitions in this space over the next few years, and I’m betting a lot of them will be focused on the service model, although we’ll also see some service companies enabling the DIY model as a way to capture the smaller number of higher spending early adopters.
via CE Pro
Marvel’s ‘Iron Fist’ critics rating: 0% on Rotten Tomatoes – Business Insider (Mar 9, 2017)
Netflix’s original content has always been a mixed bag – on the one hand, shows like House of Cards won awards (and also won Netflix lots of customers), but on the other there was Marco Polo, which critics panned (it has a 24% score on Rotten Tomatoes) but audiences enjoyed anyway (the corresponding audience score is 93%). Given that Netflix doesn’t release any kind of viewing data, it’s emphasized positive critical response as a validation of its original content, but it’s also defended shows like Marco Polo as being popular with real people even if critics didn’t like them. This new show has done even worse than Marco Polo with critics, but there’s a decent chance audiences will lap that up too. The fact is that any content production is a gamble, and given that Netflix doesn’t use Amazon’s pilot model to select new shows, that gamble is that much larger, especially with a big budget, Marvel-branded show. Only Netflix knows what its internal calculus on what makes a show a success or a failure looks like, but I’m guessing a one-off critical panning won’t do too much damage to its original content strategy. If it starts to become a pattern, however, that would be more worrisome.
via Business Insider
Samsung Plans U.S. Expansion, Would Shift Manufacturing From Mexico – WSJ (Mar 9, 2017)
This didn’t get a ton of coverage on Wednesday, but it’s one of the first concrete statements we’ve seen from a major tech manufacturer that it is considering building new infrastructure in the US – all other reporting on this topic has either been unconfirmed by the company or has turned out to be something announced earlier. Samsung is fascinating in this context – unlike Apple and Amazon, it was never singled out for criticism during the campaign, and of course Trump himself uses a Samsung smartphone. But the company nevertheless seems keen to curry favor by building capacity in the US.
via WSJ
FBI Director Comey Criticizes Encryption Again – BuzzFeed (Mar 8, 2017)
If ever there were a terrible week for the FBI to restate its case against encryption, this would have to be it, given the Wikileaks CIA leak which demonstrated that the CIA regularly engages in hacking of electronic devices, and claims to have the code for the tools themselves. Any backdoor for the government would be subject to the same sort of breach that has clearly affected the CIA and its hacking tools, so there is no reason to believe that the FBI would be able to protect these tools adequately if they existed. And the broader statement which is in the BuzzFeed headline here about privacy is chilling too. The reality is that there have always been aspects of citizens’ lives which have been inaccessible to law enforcement, not least their private conversations which happen outside earshot of bugs and wiretaps, and protections against self-incrimination, which should logically extend to things like smartphones too. And any tools created for or by the government to bypass such protections are inevitably going to fall into the wrong hands eventually.
via BuzzFeed
The Next iPhone Could Put 15,000 Repair Companies Out of Business – Motherboard (Mar 8, 2017)
This piece reminds me of the analysis iFixit always does when a new iPhone comes out, giving each phone a “repairability” score and generally hammering iPhones and other similar devices for being hard for ordinary people to repair. Those always strike me as being so fixated on this one aspect of a device that they often sound as if they take it as a personal affront that these devices are tough to fix, as if Apple and other vendors had somehow set out to spite them. This piece has somewhat the same tone, and again acts as if Apple has no object in mind in designing its Touch ID and Secure Enclave than thwarting third parties’ attempts to repair iPhones. It’s worth noting that Apple doesn’t void warranties on devices fixed by third parties unlike lots of other manufacturers, which has to be the strongest possible indication that it doesn’t object in principle to the practice. Rather, it designs the Secure Enclave and Touch ID to be as secure as possible, a level of security which has risen over time and made it possible for earlier iPhones with Touch ID to be hacked in a way newer ones can’t be. This is central to Apple’s commitment to the privacy and security of its phones, and any impact on third party repair is purely incidental. Apple likely doesn’t even consider the impact on third party repair shops, but it certainly doesn’t deliberately set out to make their lives harder.
via Motherboard
Wikileaks Could Still Release CIA Hacking Tool Code – USA Today (Mar 8, 2017)
Though the CIA leaks from Wikileaks earlier this week are worrisome in their scope and bad news for the vendors whose devices and platforms have been compromised, there’s at least some comfort in the knowledge that these tools have at least theoretically been subject to due process in the past. However, Wikileaks claims that it has the code for the hacking tools themselves and is debating releasing that code, which would make it available to any hacker who wanted to use it, dramatically increasing the potential for misuse for hacking regular individuals. Again, Apple has said (and Google also confirmed this evening finally) that most of the vulnerabilities have already been patched in recent versions of their respective software, so that should be some defense. But as I’ve said already this week, what a vindication of Apple’s refusal to cooperate with the FBI a year ago over hacking an iPhone.
via USA Today
Uber Changes Policy on Greyball App for Evading Law Enforcement (Mar 8, 2017)
Uber has issued a statement announcing that it is ceasing the use of its Greyball platform for evading law enforcement and regulators, and that it’s in the process of responding to “organizations” (presumably regulators and law enforcement personnel in the cities where the platform previously did operate) who have enquired about it. This is striking because Uber’s initial response to the New York Times report was brazen in its lack of contrition – it had acted as though it saw nothing wrong, but has clearly now had a change of heart. The wording of today’s announcement certainly seems to concede that it did use the tool for evading regulators in the past, and even suggests it may continue to do so in the near future because of unspecified elements of how it works, which seems bizarre.
via Uber
Google, a Cloud Computing Upstart, Seeks Credibility – WSJ (Mar 8, 2017)
Google is having its big enterprise cloud event, Next, this week, and making lots of announcements of both new features and new customers. I got a briefing on the new features on Monday ahead of the announcements, and it looks like a decent set of mostly incremental improvements, many of which are about closing the gap competitively with Amazon and Microsoft and a few of which are more unique. But all the new features and customer wins Google announces won’t change a basic fact outlined well in this WSJ report: Google is way behind the two big players in this space in terms of scale. Even with rapid growth, Google is unlikely to close the gap because both AWS and Azure are growing fast too. Google claims that it’s winning a good share of the engagements it competes for, which then implies that it’s still not being considered for many engagements where Amazon and Microsoft are competing, something that’s also reinforced by a (somewhat self-serving) comment from Microsoft in this article. Its job at this point is, then, to ensure higher consideration when companies are looking for a cloud provider.
via WSJ (you might also be interested in last week’s Beyond Devices Podcast, in which we discussed AWS and its competitors in some depth)
If You Ask To Get Your Samsung Washing Machine Repaired, A Dish TV Guy Might Show Up – BuzzFeed (Mar 8, 2017)
This is a crazy story – Samsung is contracting out washing machine repairs as part of its recall to Dish TV installation technicians, those technicians in turn are trying to sell customers surround-sound systems for their living rooms while often doing a poor job actually repairing the washing machines. This looks like a combination of poor training and poor quality control on the part of both Samsung and the Dish installation contractors (who likely mostly aren’t directly employed by Dish). Imagine you have just been told that your washing machine is potentially dangerous and needs service to fix it, and then the guy who comes to fix it not only doesn’t do that well but tries to push a set of TV speakers on you. This is a terrible experience for the customer, and unfortunately in line with a long prior list of questionable customer service from Samsung over its home appliances.
via BuzzFeed
Alphabet’s Nest Working on Cheaper Thermostat, Home Security System – Bloomberg (Mar 8, 2017)
There are several interesting elements here – a cheaper Nest thermostat, a thermostat with the power to control the temperature in individual rooms, and a home security system. Bringing the price down could certainly help drive adoption – $250 is a little steep for a single thermostat, but it really adds up when you have several (as we do in our home). Of course, one of the reasons why you might have several Nests installed is to control the temperature in different rooms more effectively – we have a number of different zones for just this reason, and no smart thermostat I’ve seen can manage more than one zone at once. Of course, this might also require a professional HVAC technician to create some new zones in your home – I can’t imagine how it would work without those changes. However, all that said, I think the security system is potentially the most interesting thing here, because it opens the door to the kind of service model I think is key to the future of the smart home (see the narrative attached to this post). When Nest’s new CEO was installed, I pointed out that he comes from a services background and would be an appropriate leader to drive a transition from a retail model to a services model – I’m very curious to see if we see a move in this direction when this hardware launches. That could drive much stronger growth in Nest’s business, but it would likely be heavily reliant on partnerships, which is the other important part of such a shift.
via Bloomberg
Microsoft Pledges to Use ARM Server Chips, Threatening Intel’s Dominance – Bloomberg (Mar 8, 2017)
The data center business at Intel accounts for almost a third of its revenues, has high margins, and has been growing considerably faster than its Client Computing segment (which includes PCs, tablets, and mobile phones). And it’s done well in large part because of commitments from big players like Microsoft to using its chips in their data center servers. But now Microsoft is saying it plans to switch to using ARM-based chips made by Qualcomm in its Azure server infrastructure instead, which could put a dent in Intel’s future growth and reduce its share from the 99% cited in this Bloomberg article. This isn’t imminent – it’s a step on a path Microsoft is committed to, but hasn’t been rolled out to any customer facing servers yet. But ARM-based chips have been cited as potential substitutes for Intel chips in server farms for some time now, so this could be the beginning of a dramatic shift in the next few years. That’s obviously terrible news for Intel, for which the data center business has been a useful source of growth and margins in recent years. Meanwhile, this is such a small business for Qualcomm today that it doesn’t even get mentioned in its quarterly earnings materials, but that could obviously change rapidly going forward.
via Bloomberg
Apple says it’s already fixed many WikiLeaks security issues – USA Today (Mar 8, 2017)
I suggested this was the case in my coverage of the leak yesterday, but Apple has now issued an official statement to that effect as well. I would guess Apple is still digesting all the information leaked – there’s a lot of it – but it has said that most of the vulnerabilities outlined have already been patched in the latest versions of its software, and fixes for the rest should be coming soon. Samsung has also issued a statement on its TV vulnerabilities, but it’s far less reassuring – it only says it’s aware of and is looking into these hacks. In fairness, though, the Samsung hack appears to require a USB stick plugged into the TV to install it, which means that if you’re a victim you likely have far bigger things to worry about than your TV listening to you – this isn’t a large-scale remote hack that would affect the population as a whole.
via USA Today
Didi has opened a self-driving lab in the U.S. with famed Jeep hacker Charlie Miller – Recode (Mar 8, 2017)
This seems like a smart move – even though there are lots of talented engineers in China, the nexus for development of autonomous driving today has to be either Silicon Valley or Detroit, so putting a base of operations in the former makes a lot of sense. There’s no evidence here that Didi is otherwise expanding into the US (after all, its new partner Uber is dominant here and that likely wouldn’t go down well), but that’s not to say Didi won’t try to hire from the other companies in the area. It’s already hired Charlie Miller, who came from Uber itself and was best known for having hacked a connected Jeep while it was driving a while back. The competitive intensity in this market, especially over hiring, is only likely to ramp up over time and things will get increasingly nasty as a result (and we’ve already got two lawsuits underway).
via Recode
ZTE to Pay $892 Million to U.S., Plead Guilty in Iran Sanctions Probe – WSJ (Mar 8, 2017)
This case has been going on for a long time, and is another example of the tensions between US and Chinese tech companies, in the wireless space in particular. Though this case has nothing to do with the concerns about back doors in wireless networks I mentioned in the context of Huawei yesterday, it highlights another concern: that Chinese tech companies have often been willing to sell technology to some of the world’s repressive regimes, and have often had to cover their tracks in order to do so. ZTE got caught doing this in Iran a few years back and the US has taken action over breach of sanctions, as ZTE was incorporating US components. The worst case scenario here was that ZTE would be banned from exporting any US technology to use in its own products, which would have included Qualcomm chips apart from other things and would likely have been devastating. It avoided that outcome, but still has to pay a fine equivalent to its last two years of profits, which is pretty bad by itself. None of this is likely to make US wireless carriers more likely to place Chinese smartphones on their premium shelf space.
via WSJ
Verizon: Unlimited Data Plan Lures Sprint Customers – Fortune (Mar 8, 2017)
The reintroduction of unlimited plans by AT&T and Verizon in February makes this one of the least predictable periods in the recent history of the US wireless industry. The presence of unlimited plans at Sprint and T-Mobile and their absence at the two larger carriers has been a defining characteristic of the market for so long that the rapid turnaround is likely to lead to quite a bit of change in competitive dynamics and growth rates. Here’s the first evidence of that in the form of comments from Sprint’s CFO at an investor conference that churn will be stable rather than down this quarter as originally anticipated. T-Mobile hasn’t really commented yet, but has been introducing a set of promotions throughout the second half of the quarter in an attempt to keep its own growth going at previously expected rates. The impact in Q1 will actually be a little muted because the changes didn’t kick in until halfway through the quarter – it’s in Q2 and the rest of the year where we’ll see the biggest impact, though the exact scale and nature of that impact is still up in the air.
via Fortune
Actually, Uber’s PR disasters aren’t that great for Lyft – Recode (Mar 7, 2017)
This is interesting data which confirms something that I’ve always suspected but never had more than gut feel to go on: that matters of principle rarely cause large scale and lasting changes in consumer behavior. In other words, even with the high profile and almost continuous coverage of everything going on at Uber at the moment, only relatively small numbers of people seem to be switching to Lyft, and they seem to be doing so fairly temporarily. The article cites spend data from a company called TXN which shows only a brief and switch of spending from Uber to Lyft in a couple of cities, which appears to represent roughly 5-10 points of market share at its peak. Convenience, habit, peer pressure and a myriad of other factors all likely weigh as heavily or more so in decisions to use a service or not, and Lyft’s big problem is that in many cities it’s simply not as big as Uber is. In the two cities cited here, it looks like Uber had two thirds and four fifths of spending at its nadir following the negative news, and that’s likely representative of many other cities where both operate (and of course there are still cities where Lyft doesn’t operate at all despite its recent expansion). That makes it tough to capitalize in a major way even when Uber appears to be stumbling significantly, especially because those stumbles haven’t affected the user experience in the slightest.
via Recode
Twitter’s former head engineer Alex Roetter lands at Larry Page’s flying car startup Kitty Hawk – Business Insider (Mar 7, 2017)
The details of this story aren’t all that interesting unless flying cars are a particular obsession. What’s most interesting here is actually that Larry Page is now doing in separate (often secretive) entities things which in the past might well have been done by divisions of Google. I’ve often said that a lot of what now sits in the Other Bets segment at Alphabet began life as a twinkle in Larry or Sergey’s eye, or as a passion project of sorts, and that’s always struck me as a rather inappropriate use of shareholders’ money. So, it’s interesting to see that not only is Alphabet paring back the Other Bets and exercising greater financial discipline around them in general, but the Google founders are also starting to make those bets with their own money. Both feel like progress.
via Business Insider
Instagram Stories launches geostickers as its Snap attack continues – TechCrunch (Mar 7, 2017)
Just a quick one here to document yet another “borrowed” feature from Snapchat in Instagram: this time, geostickers. No sponsored stickers yet, but given how hard Facebook is currently pushing to find new ways and places to serve up ads in its various properties, those can’t be far behind. The geostickers are pretty limited for now, but no doubt they’ll also spread in time. This doesn’t feel like one of the most important missing pieces in Instagram’s feature set, but no doubt it’ll help Snapchat converts feel a little more at home once it rolls out more fully.
via TechCrunch
Self-driving cars are watching us and recording our data whether or not we’re watching the road — Quartz (Mar 7, 2017)
This article is part good reporting, part opinion, and comes with a clear point of view (which I’d articulate as “carmakers are collecting too much data on us and our driving behavior with insufficient transparency and opt-outs”). But the reporting is well worth reading whether or not you agree with that point of view: the piece does a good job of spelling out all the data that’s being collected by various automakers old and new, and what it’s being used for. And indeed, this data is critical for developing both ADAS and autonomous driving systems, because it’s only by measuring real-world human driver behavior at massive scale that cars can be taught both how to drive like human beings (which is important for trust and comfort) and how to drive better than human beings (which is important for safety). The legacy carmakers obviously have a big advantage here because they have many more cars on the road and hitting the road each year than newcomers like Tesla, let alone non-carmakers like Uber and Google. But it’s how that data is collected and used that makes all the difference here – putting advanced sensors in cars is critical to getting the rich data needed, but it also raises big privacy concerns which I suspect we’re going to hear a lot more about in the coming years.
via Quartz