With Assistant, Google is becoming a lot more like Apple
Google may have finally taken control of its hardware with the new Pixel phones, but the company’s still focusing on software. In particular: artificial intelligence. The AI-powered Assistant is an integral part of its new phones, Allo messaging app and smart speaker, making for a more uniform and useful experience across all of Google’s (and other brands’) devices. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Apple brought Siri to multiple platforms first.
Assistant brings voice control to the new Google Home smart speaker, in addition to the new Pixels, and lets you control your Chromecast playback with your voice. The goal, said the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai, is to make Assistant “universally available.” This means we can look forward to more integrations across other Google products, possibly including Chromebooks and Android wearables.
Imagine a not-unlikely future where you can use Assistant on your wrist to tell your Chromecast to pause Netflix when you go to the bathroom. You could even get rid of those Netflix socks altogether. Since Android Wear already offers built-in OK Google capability, it’s not a stretch to imagine that being supplanted by Assistant. Again, that’s similar to what Apple already allows for with Siri on Apple Watches and MacBooks. And just as Google is bringing its Android OS to televisions and (possibly) laptops, Apple has software that is the same (or very similar) across its TV, phone and tablet operating systems. It’s one platform for all devices.
The iPhone maker has long been criticized for its closed ecosystem, as Google has been hailed as a crusader for open platforms. But while Android remains an open OS, Assistant’s rollout is reminiscent of other Apple tools such as HealthKit and HomeKit, where developers get access to APIs a period of time after launch. Of course, Google doesn’t appear to have the intention of blocking access to Assistant’s code, and unlike with HealthKit and HomeKit you can build Assistant into your own hardware. But it’s worth noting that it’s implementing features in a way that’s more like its rival.
I’d be remiss if I overlooked the couple other players in the digital assistant space. Microsoft is making Cortana accessible and uniform across its phones and desktops, but it doesn’t have the breadth across product categories to take on Google and Apple. And although Amazon’s Alexa currently doesn’t exist in phones or laptops, it’s in a variety of speakers (Echo and Tap), the Fire TV and third party devices like this quirky smartwatch, and is catching up to Siri in what it can do and control.
Google’s method has one glowing difference that sets it apart: its approach to and expertise in artificial intelligence. The Assistant showcase comes after a slew of announcements about machine learning, including those around translations and image recognition, that evidence the tech giant’s commitment to AI. And while Microsoft and Amazon themselves have pretty advanced artificial intelligence, and are farther along there than Apple, Google’s history of being the world’s favorite search engine (and basically being in everyone’s business) provides a wealth of knowledge of user behavior and gives it quite the edge. It has more historical data to refer to and more information to train its machine-learning systems on, which should make it smarter, faster.
Pichai said the company intends to create a “personal Google” for everyone — a search engine-powered helper that knows exactly where all your pictures, receipts and emails are, as well as all of your upcoming events and their locations and how to get there. Although it may be later to the party than Apple was, the popularity and proliferation of Google’s services, as well as its AI prowess, could very well make Assistant the digital helper of choice.
You’ll need the disc to play ‘Modern Warfare: Remastered’
Folks are salivating at the thought of playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, but the new game it comes with? Not so much. But if you purchased the disc-based version of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in the hope of playing Remastered and slinging the newer title back to Gamestop, we’ve got some bad news. Activision has mandated that you can’t relive the adventures of Soap and Price unless the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare disc is sat in your console and your internet connection is live. Bummer.
In the run up to the game’s November 4th launch, Activision has published an updated FAQ revealing the list of restrictions gamers will have to tolerate. For PlayStation users, Remastered will have to be downloaded in its entirety via a voucher code, while those on team Xbox will get the bulk of the game on the disc, but will still need to pull down an update. Those on Steam, meanwhile, will get a key in the Legacy Edition of the title that’ll let you play both games and, yes, you still need to have your internet connected for it to work. Thanks, Activision.
Via: Polygon
Source: Activision
Find your next ‘Destiny’ raid group with latest Xbox One patch
Next time you need to find a group to help you through Destiny’s latest raid, you won’t have to venture outside your Xbox One. That’s because the Looking For Group feature teased at E3 is starting to roll out to Dashboard Preview Program members at the moment. Those posts can be made up to a week in advance of when you’re ready to play. The update also includes Arena, Xbox Live’s take on daily tournaments, starting with fighting game Killer Instinct according to a post on Xbox Wire.
That’s not all. Xbox is catching up to what PlayStation has offered for awhile and adding rarity ratings to achievements. Meaning, if you completed a championship starting at every race route in Forza Horizon 3 and unlocked the “Horizon Hardcore” achievement, you’d see how unique it is among the general Xbox Live community. The blog post goes on to say that rare accomplishments have a special notification and a diamond icon as a way of differentiating them from commonly unlocked tasks.
Need more? There’s also group messaging shoehorned in as well, and soon it’ll work across the Xbox One, the Xbox app on PC and mobile. As these things tend to go, the wider Xbox Live audience should see these features in a month or so after the preview program has them.
Source: Xbox Wire
Microsoft discontinues its Band fitness wearable
The Microsoft Band is likely no more. While signs pointed to the wearable line’s possible demise a few weeks ago, there was always the chance that the tech giant would flip its noncommittal stance and announce a Band 3. But the final nail seems to be in its coffin: As of today, every listing and mention of the fitness wearable has been completely removed from the company’s Store site.
Best Buy has likewise removed it from its online store, though Band 2 devices are still available on Amazon until their supply runs out, according to The Verge. While a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet that it will still support existing Band 2 owners, they have also removed the device’s software development kit from its site.
The writing may have been on the wall when Microsoft supposedly disbanded the team porting the wearable to Windows 10 a few months ago. But they’re still keeping their mobile health apps under the “Band” name, which they rebranded last month as rumor spread that they were dropping their own fitness device. This lets Microsoft continue running its Health backend service on other wearables, extending its lifespan while they quietly let their tracker die.
Source: ZDNet
Microsoft Likely Discontinuing Microsoft Band Wearable Device
The Microsoft Band, the wearable device Microsoft first introduced in late 2014, is being quietly phased out of existence. As of today, Microsoft has removed all Microsoft Band models from the Microsoft Online Store and has eliminated the Band Software Development Kit.
In a statement given to ZDNet, a Microsoft representative said that the company has sold through all of its Band 2 inventory and does not have plans to release a new Band wearable in 2016.
“We have sold through our existing Band 2 inventory and have no plans to release another Band device this year. We remain committed to supporting our Microsoft Band 2 customers through Microsoft Stores and our customer support channels and will continue to invest in the Microsoft Health platform, which is open to all hardware and apps partners across Windows, iOS, and Android devices.”
Following the Microsoft Band’s 2014 release, Microsoft continued development on the device and released a second-generation model in October of 2015. Priced at $250, the second-generation Microsoft Band featured an optical heart rate monitor for measuring heart rate, an accelerometer and gyroscope for measuring movement, GPS, skin temperature sensors, and more.
It received poor reviews for its price point, design, battery life, and lack of utility, and despite Microsoft’s efforts to push sales with an Apple Watch trade-in program, the Microsoft Band 2 failed to catch on.
Previous information shared by ZDNet has suggested Microsoft disbanded the team that was working to bring Windows 10 to the Microsoft Band and has relocated some of the hardware team. Sources have also told the site that Microsoft is planning to phase out the fitness band and has no plans to work on a Band 3.
Tag: Microsoft
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Photoshop and Office 2016 Stability Fixes in the Works for macOS Sierra Users
Following the release of macOS Sierra last month, the latest operating system has caused some compatibility and stability issues with Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac that both companies are working to resolve.
A growing number of users on Adobe’s support community claim that Photoshop CC crashes when attempting to print projects after updating to macOS Sierra. Doug Thomson, for example, is unable to print to his Epson 7890, while some other Epson and Canon printer models appear to be affected.
Installed macOS Sierra and now Photoshop 15.5.1 crashes when attempting to print. Print dialogue opens and settings can be modified, but when attempting to print Photoshop crashes perhaps 9 out of 10 attempts. Most frustrating. I’m printing to an Epson 7890, but I have seen the same issue cited for Canon. Adobe support told me that Photoshop has not been tested on Sierra, but in reality Adobe has had Sierra for months and have even published known issues. I pay a ton of money for this thing to work and this nonsense from support is very annoying.
Adobe has since acknowledged the issue in a support document, noting that Photoshop CC version 2015.5 or earlier may crash while printing to some printers from Macs running macOS Sierra. Adobe said its engineers are working on a solution for a future update to Photoshop CC, as echoed by Adobe product manager Pete Green.
@walkyourcamera @Photoshop @EpsonAmerica @AppleSupport We’re working on it from our end, watch this thread for more: https://t.co/JPw38b7r0I
— Pete Green (@_petegreen) October 1, 2016
Adobe recommends users make sure their printer driver is up-to-date. “Just updating the driver may not work,” said Adobe, adding that users “need to delete the driver, delete the printer, install the latest driver then install the printer.” Adobe points towards an Apple support document on troubleshooting printers on Mac. If all else fails, Adobe recommends users print from Photoshop Lightroom in the meantime.
Separately, Microsoft has acknowledged that Office 2016 for Mac closes unexpectedly, or crashes, for some macOS Sierra users. The company’s engineers are working with Apple to investigate and resolve the issue.
MacRumors reader Adam C. emailed us about his problems on macOS Sierra:
Office for Mac is causing me heaps of trouble. Computer hangs, and I can’t even force quit the applications. Have to rudely switch off computer and restart.
Until a fix is released, a new support document suggests turning off “Auto Proxy Discovery” or “Automatic Proxy Configuration” as a possible workaround, if allowed by your personal or organization’s network configuration.
Related Roundup: macOS Sierra
Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Adobe, Office 2016 for Mac
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Hit side-scroller ‘Axiom Verge’ lands on Xbox One
Not surprisingly, Axiom Verge has taken a while to spread across platforms — Thomas Happ designed the entire Metroidvania-style shooter by himself, so even a straightforward port was bound to take a while. At last, though, you don’t have to be picky about where you play. Happ has released a version of Axiom Verge for the Xbox One, making the mind-bending side-scroller available on every modern TV console (the Wii U version arrived on September 1st). So what took so long for this release, especially since it was available on PCs ages ago?
According to Happ, it’s a matter of an unexpected switch in developer tools. He’d initially targeted the Xbox 360 a full 7 years ago, and was working with Microsoft’s freely available XNA developer kit… until Microsoft dropped support for XNA. He had to wait until Microsoft supported an open source version of XNA (Monogame) on Xbox One to bring Axiom Verge to the newer hardware. That isn’t much consolation if you’re an Xbox One owner who had to wait a year and a half to see what all the fuss was about, but it does show that the timing wasn’t entirely in the developer’s hands.
Source: Microsoft Store, Xbox Wire
Salesforce urges EU to block Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn
When Microsoft announced they’d won the bidding war for LinkedIn with a colossal $26.2 billion offer, it seemed, well, about as interesting as corporate enterprise acquisitions sound. Yet it’s a shrewd move for both: Integrating a business-oriented social network into Outlook or Windows would be promising for the software giant, while LinkedIn gets stability under its new corporate umbrella. But not everyone is happy about the deal: Salesforce is urging the European Union to block it, claiming the union would be anticompetitive.
Specifically, Salesforce’s chief legal officer Burke Norton argued that if Microsoft owns LinkedIn’s dataset of “450 million professionals in more than 200 million countries,” they could deny competitors from using it. But even the combination of software and social information could give an unfair advantage, sources told The New York Times. Of course, the company is hardly unbiased: Salesforce had a competing bid for LinkedIn.
Microsoft fired back, noting that the deal has already been cleared in the United States, Canada and Brazil, and that the advantage would not outpace Salesforce’s existing dominance in the customer relationship management (CRM) market. Whether the EU competition authority ends up blocking it or not, the call for scrutiny could lead to a deeper investigation into the deal, potentially dragging it out for months longer.
Source: PC World
Melinda Gates’ initiative is about getting more women into tech
Melinda Gates has been supporting the global fight against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS with her husband since 2000. And she’ll continue to do so, but now she’s also building her own office and dedicating resources to tackle gender inequality in the tech industry. In an interview with Backchannel, Gates said her new initiative’s goal is to get more women working in technology and to get them to stay there. Gates is more than just the Microsoft founder’s wife: she worked in Redmond for a decade after getting her undergrad and MBA in computer science from Duke.
“I care about computer science,” she told Backchannel, lamenting the fact that there were more female computer science graduates back in the ’80s. While more and more women are going into law and medicine, female computer science graduates now only make up 18 percent of the total. It used to be 37 percent back in the ’80s. Gates stressed the importance of women’s presence in tech titans’ development labs to make sure they’re able to address the needs of half of the world’s population. She cited Apple’s Health app, as an example, calling its lack of ability to track menstruation a “blatant error” that might not have happened if there were more women working on its development.
She explained:
“When you look in the labs at who’s working on AI, you can find one woman here, and one woman there. Your’e not even finding three or four in labs together.
The other thing I know from work around the world is that women truly only get empowered when there’s a collective of them. You get one woman down in a village trying to break the system. She can’t do it at the village level unless she’s got women around her. It’s the power of the collective. Then she can go demand her rights.”
Gates is still in the research stage of her new project, and it could take a couple of years to conjure up a course of action. What she knows, however, is that she wants to get to the root of things, starting with getting young girls in grade school interested in the field. One possible way to do that is to highlight women in the industry who can become role models for the younger generation.
If you have an idea you’d like Gates to consider, Backchannel is now compiling comments to write up a letter of advice for the philanthropist.
Via: The Verge
Source: Backchannel
How these companies would benefit from owning Twitter (or not)
Twitter has been struggling lately. It’s been battling flat user growth, declining profits, an executive exodus and generally bad PR — especially around its handling of abuse. Many have speculated for months that Twitter should just sell itself. And, if the rumor mill is to be believed, the company is indeed looking for ways to make that happen. According to reports from CNBC, TechCrunch and Bloomberg, the social media giant is in the crosshairs of at least five suitors: Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Verizon and Disney. Here’s a look at all five — plus one we came up with ourselves — to see what a Twitter acquisition could do for them.
Image credit: Morris MacMatzen / Reuters
Even though Google is a titan in many fields — search, mobile and maps, among others — it hasn’t done so well in social. Its first attempt was Orkut, which faded into obscurity despite some isolated popularity in Brazil. There was Wave, a real-time messaging platform that was so confusing the project flatlined almost as soon as it launched. There’s also Buzz, a now-discontinued social network which integrated directly with Gmail — a move that unfortunately resulted in users being able to see their friends’ and families’ email contacts.
And, of course, there’s Google+, the company’s most notable attempt yet at a becoming a social network. But even that has proved something of a disappointment. It doesn’t help that tactics like forcing everyone to use it for other Google services have been alienating for some. Today, many of its features feel more disconnected than they used to. Google Plus is now a place for discussion groups than a traditional social network.
Basically, then, for Google to acquire Twitter, which already has over 313 million users, would be an instant boon. It would give the search giant the social cred it’s been chasing for so many years. Plus, Google has a little something called YouTube to help Twitter with its video streaming ambitions.
SalesForce
Image credit: Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Out of all the companies whose names have been floated as possible suitors, the unlikeliest is probably SalesForce. Known mostly for customer-relations management software, it’s decidedly enterprise-focused. At first blush, its interest in Twitter seems odd.
Yet it might not be. SalesForce already tried and failed to buy LinkedIn (Microsoft was the winner in that particular contest), so it would seem the company has long wanted to cash in on social. Plus, one of the features of its software is a plug-in that tracks mentions of brands on social media. SalesForce could leverage Twitter’s role as a customer communications tool to boost its own sales-and-marketing arsenal.
Microsoft
Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Microsoft has never done particularly well at social. In 2011 it launched So.cl, a “search-based social network” that lets you share search results with friends, but it’s been unpopular, to say the least. Aside from that, most of the company’s investment in this space has been through acquisitions. A few years ago, it bought Yammer (a sort of Twitter for business), and it picked up LinkedIn earlier this year. Microsoft also tried and failed to buy Facebook back when it was a startup, but that obviously didn’t go as planned.
Acquiring Twitter would be the easiest and fastest way to make headway in social, but for Microsoft the deal would mean more than that. Despite a string of well-reviewed products like the Surface Book that have helped get consumers excited about Microsoft, the company may still seem stodgy to some, especially compared with younger rivals like Google and Facebook. Though Twitter itself is now a large, publicly traded company that doesn’t necessarily know what it’s doing, its user base is at least younger and more media savvy than Microsoft’s. That might be just what Satya Nadella and co. are looking for.
Verizon
Mike Blake / Reuters
If you think Verizon is just a plain old wireless carrier, you have it wrong. The company has had its sights set on the media space for a while now. Last year it bought AOL (Engadget’s parent company), and a few months ago it announced its intention to buy Yahoo. (The purchase isn’t set to close until 2017.) Both deals were made in the name of increasing Verizon’s advertising portfolio.
And, seeing as Twitter is a pretty big media company in its own right — it’s often the place to go for breaking news, and the company has recently made a push around livestreaming — it could fit right into Verizon’s video ambitions. Plus, let’s not forget that Twitter is yet another source for advertising revenue. With all of these companies under one umbrella, Verizon might have enough ammo to compete against the likes of Google and Facebook.
Disney
Jacky Naegelen / Reuters
Another strange potential bedfellow in this Twitter acquisition rumorfest is Disney. To be fair, CEO Jack Dorsey is on Disney’s board, so they’re already friendly enough that getting early-stage discussions off the ground may have been easier than it would have otherwise. Also, Disney owns several media entities like ABC and ESPN, so having Twitter would be great as an in-house marketing tool.
The issue here is that Twitter is also used by its rivals — you know, Fox, CNN, Comcast, and every other brand on earth — and those companies might not feel so great having their engagement analytics in the hands of the competition. Twitter’s poor history of handling abuse complaints might not sit well with Disney’s squeaky-clean image either.
Fantasy pick: Amazon
Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters
While Amazon wasn’t named as a potential buyer, a Twitter acquisition would make some sense for the Seattle-based company. Sure, it’s largely known as an e-tailer, but Amazon has shown it isn’t afraid to experiment. It’s dabbled in hardware — the Kindle and Echo come to mind — and it’s making a strong play in video streaming too. And that video isn’t limited to just Prime subscribers: Amazon is also dabbling in live video after acquiring Twitch two years ago. Buying Twitter would provide yet another live vertical for Amazon and, of course, access to one of the world’s largest social networks. It might seem odd, but Amazon isn’t a normal company. And lest you forget, CEO Jeff Bezos already owns the Washington Post, indicating he might well have media mogul aspirations.
Anyone’s guess
Regardless of who ends up owning Twitter, it seems clear that somebody will eventually need to buy it, if only to keep it alive. On Monday, Twitter was the place on the internet to congregate during the US presidential debate. It was a firestorm of heated commentary — lively, interactive and emotional. It is this quality that has made Twitter such an effective launchpad for political movements like the Arab Spring. The company might have problems making money and gaining users, but its value to modern society is clear. Let’s hope somebody can keep it going.
AIVAnet 