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"The definitive guide to 5G low, mid, and high band speeds | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/10/the-definitive-guide-to-5g-low-mid-and-high-band-speeds"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The definitive guide to 5G low, mid, and high band speeds Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn T-Mobile radio engineering SVP Mark McDiarmid.
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Heading into 2019, 5G performance was largely theoretical: Standards-compliant 5G networks and smartphones were still nascent if not months away , so carriers focused more on building and testing their networks than guaranteeing performance.
But over the past year, carriers across the world have rolled out multiple 5G networks and devices , using a combination of lab tests and real-world user results to sharpen their initially soft marketing claims.
As we prepare to kick off 2020, 5G performance is concrete — or as close to concrete as we can get with a technology that will continue to improve for years after its initial release. Inspired by T-Mobile, multiple carriers have embraced a multi-tier 5G strategy that uses three types of radio signals to deliver cellular service to 5G devices: low, mid, and high band frequencies. Each tier has different characteristics.
If you want to understand how 5G will work where you live, this guide will make it clear. Up until last week, it wasn’t entirely certain how fast (or slow) all three 5G tiers will be in practice. But now that T-Mobile’s low band 5G network is widely available , we can pin down how the low, medium, and high bands will actually work together for 5G — and heading into 2020, that’s definitely worth understanding.
Radio spectrum, simplified Cellular phones get their wireless communication abilities from tiny radios. Unlike a car radio, users don’t need to manually select “stations” such as 88.9FM or 1020AM to receive signals. Instead, cell phones’ radio tuners use lists of nearby radio towers, automatically selecting optimal radio frequencies to transmit calls, text messages, and data.
5G differs from prior cell phone standards in having a much wider radio dial than before, capable of tuning in many more types of frequencies — and multiple types of frequencies at the same time. To radically simplify the concept, imagine a pocket-sized TV with a left-to-right tuning dial listing channels 2 through 200. Tuned all the way to the left, all the TV will pick up is an audio signal. In the middle, it will find signals with both audio and video. And at the right, it will find signals that make the little TV display 3D holographic video and surround sound audio. In some areas, all you’ll be able to pick up is the audio signal, while in others, you’ll be able to get video or 3D video, too.
Old 4G phones were able to tune to the left and middle, but not the right. New 5G phones can either tune all three, or to the middle and right but not the left.
Low, mid, and high band 5G, summarized The left side is called low band 5G, while the middle is known as mid band 5G, and the right is high band 5G. Understanding how 5G service works comes down to recognizing that all three bands are being used to deliver 5G service, each with its own combination of speed and range.
As shown in the photo above, T-Mobile has depicted the three types of signals as a layer cake. The red low band tier covers a lot of space, slowly, while the yellow mid band covers less space at faster speeds, and the red high band covers the least space at super-fast speeds.
In quick summary, the bands work as follows in the real world. One low band (600-700MHz) tower can cover hundreds of square miles with 5G service that ranges in speed from 30 to 250 megabits per second (Mbps). A mid band (2.5/3.5GHz) tower covers a several-mile radius with 5G that currently ranges from 100 to 900Mbps. Lastly, a high band (millimeter wave/24-39GHz) tower covers a one-mile or lower radius while delivering roughly 1-3Gbps speeds. Each of these tiers will improve in performance over time.
Low band 5G, detailed Illustrated by the bottom cake layer, low band spectrum can also be understood as a “blanket layer” for nationwide coverage — it will provide a base, “doesn’t get any worse than this” level of 5G virtually everywhere in the United States, as well as in other countries with huge geographic areas requiring rapid 5G service. Transmitting on the 600MHz frequency once used for analog TV broadcasts, one low band 5G tower can serve customers within hundreds of square miles, enabling coverage in even far-flung and rural locations.
The good news is that T-Mobile’s low band 5G peaks at somewhere in the neighborhood of 225 megabits per second (Mbps) , which is six to seven times faster than common 4G speeds in the United States today. When I tested T-Mobile’s network last week in Maui, Hawaii, a market where the carrier has quite a bit of 600MHz spectrum available for 5G, I peaked at 227Mbps outdoors, and was able to get over 100Mbps from inside my hotel room, both of which turned out to be fairly close to a T-Mobile tower. Under (unrealistically) idealized conditions, a speed around 300Mbps might be possible.
Above: Even relying solely on low band 5G, T-Mobile’s OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren often outperformed an iPhone 11 Pro on T-Mobile’s LTE network by 2 to 1, sometimes more.
The bad news is that low band 5G may, depending on where you live, come nowhere close to those numbers. I was never able to get a 5G download speed higher than 34Mbps during tests of T-Mobile’s network in Orange County, California, where I live, and that’s slower than I’ve commonly seen on 4G elsewhere. However, my 5G phone’s Speedtest numbers were typically — not always — between 20% and 100% higher than results at the same times and places on a 4G iPhone 11 Pro.
In other words, your worst case scenario for low band 5G is “a little better than 4G,” with a guarantee of widespread coverage — and the 600MHz signal’s ability to pierce windows and walls. That’s not a bad starting point for 5G, and it gets much better from there.
Mid band 5G, detailed Mid band 5G is depicted by the yellow central layer of the cake, and like 4G today, it’s likely to become available in all the major “metro” areas of the United States across every major carrier in 2020. This flavor of 5G may constitute the minimum 5G performance tier in some countries; some carriers will skip low-band 5G altogether.
In the U.S., one carrier (Sprint) is already offering mid band 5G using 2.5GHz frequencies, while in foreign countries, mid band 5G generally uses similar 3.5-3.7GHz frequencies. Mid band 5G is also called “sub-6GHz” (aka “less than 6 gigahertz) because it includes radio frequencies ranging from 2GHz to 6GHz, all of which have similar speed and distance characteristics but may or may not be available for cellular use in certain countries. Regardless, towers built with mid band radios can offer service within several-mile radiuses — shorter than low band, but further than high band.
Above: T-Mobile low-band 5G on left, Sprint mid-band 5G on right.
In part because carriers are able to allocate larger chunks of transmitting spectrum to mid band 5G than low band 5G, data speeds are markedly higher. My personal tests of the first Sprint mid band 5G phone peaked at 480Mbps , but more commonly fell in the 125-200Mbps range — an average around as fast as low band 5G at its best , with the prospect of reaching 600-700Mbps peaks in some markets. That said, in the four months that passed since I first began Sprint testing, I still can’t get a 5G signal where I live; I need to drive up to Los Angeles to reliably connect to Sprint 5G towers.
Outside of the U.S., including China and South Korea, carriers and phone makers are currently promising peak mid band 5G speeds in the 2 gigabyte per second (Gbps) range, but more commonly delivering 600-900Mbps peaks.
Chip makers expect to deliver roughly 5Gbps speeds over mid band in upcoming chip sets, and Huawei says it achieved a 3.67Gbps peak using mid band in Switzerland.
Within the cellular industry, it’s clear to everyone at this point that mid band 5G will soon be the sweet spot for 5G distance and performance, assuming you live within a couple of miles of a tower.
High band 5G, detailed The small red tier at the very top of the cake represents high band millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G, super fast but very short-distance towers that will be deployed in “dense urban” environments and public gathering places that frequently serve huge numbers of people — sporting and concert stadiums, convention centers, and the like. At one point, some carriers suggested that mmWave 5G would be the only “true 5G” solution , but the past year has conclusively demonstrated that mmWave “small cells” are not going to be deployed as widely as was originally hoped.
The maximum range of high band 5G antennas recently improved to just over one mile, though mmWave signals are far more susceptible to physical encumbrance than low and mid band ones — buildings in urban environments knock that distance down to roughly 0.7 miles, and certain types of glass and walls can snuff out mmWave signals altogether.
If you’re near one of those towers, however, you’ll see peak cellular speeds beyond your wildest dreams: real world numbers between 1-3Gbps , which is to say in the neighborhood of 30-80 times faster than today’s typical U.S. 4G connection, matching or exceeding current top-performing home broadband packages.
Qualcomm and Samsung are raising the bar even higher, saying that their latest 5G modems can peak at over 7Gbps over mmWave.
Having your cake and eating it, too Though there’s been a lot of chip maker and carrier fuzziness over what 5G performance would actually be like in the real world, the numbers above are based on actual testing, so they’re a fair baseline for what 5G will be like near you next year. If you live, work, or attend events near high band “small cells” or mid band towers, you can expect to see wickedly fast data speeds in the near future and may want to jump on the 5G phone bandwagon early next year. Conversely, if you’re in an area that only has low band 5G service, you’ll likely see at least a small bump in phone speeds the next time you upgrade, though you might not need to rush out to do it.
Expect change to be a constant with 5G, though, including steps forward and back. Announcements of new 5G cities and additional 5G towers should be fairly frequent for the foreseeable future. But when a high-speed 5G tower goes up and gets saturated with users, carriers will need to add 5G capacity — possibly sharing or switching over less-used 4G radio towers — to keep data speeds up. This process will likely go on for years, though it won’t always be obvious to users.
Over the next year, carriers and consumers will both need to focus on whether their phones (and other cellular devices) are capable of tuning in low, mid, and high band 5G. Extending the analogy above, users may be unpleasantly surprised to discover that their pocket TVs aren’t capable of receiving the 5G signals they need for 3D videos, or can’t acquire 5G signals in their homes. Some carriers will make this easier to figure out than others, and if not properly addressed, it may prove to be one of the biggest sources of 5G consumer complaints in 2020.
I’ll have much more to say on the latest 5G developments in the very near future. Watch this space for all the details.
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"AT&T launches consumer 5G in 10 cities, but expects only 5GE-like speeds | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/12/att-launches-consumer-5g-in-10-cities-but-expects-only-5ge-like-speeds"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AT&T launches consumer 5G in 10 cities, but expects only 5GE-like speeds Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Samsung's Galaxy Note10+ 5G for AT&T.
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Less than a month ago, AT&T promised to launch its first 5G network for consumers across five markets “in the coming weeks,” and now it’s expanding on that promise. The carrier announced that it’s actually launching its consumer 5G network across 10 U.S. cities today, including five additional locations that weren’t originally scheduled to go live until 2020.
Users in Birmingham, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rochester, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Diego will be able to start using AT&T’s consumer 5G network today, assuming they purchase a Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G customized for the carrier. As previously noted, the phone carries a $1,300 MSRP, but AT&T is temporarily offering it for as little as $350, so long as users select qualifying unlimited and installment payment plans and trade in an existing device. Customers who preordered the phone in November will begin to receive their phones today.
The catch with AT&T’s consumer 5G service is that the carrier is telling customers to expect speeds “comparable to 5G Evolution speeds at the time of launch,” which won’t be much of an incentive to potential upgraders. Over the past year, AT&T controversially rebranded the late-stage 4G technologies included in certain Android phones and iPhones as “ 5G Evolution ,” leading to poor initial reviews and outcry from competitors , along with an expectation that AT&T’s true 5G network would deliver superior performance.
But the carrier is using 850MHz low band frequencies for its 5G offering , while reserving millimeter wave high band frequencies for business users of its “5G+” network. Confusingly, users who purchase the Galaxy Note10+ 5G won’t be able to access AT&T’s 5G+ network, while purchasers of the Galaxy S10+ 5G won’t be able to access AT&T’s 5G network. Both devices can connect to AT&T’s 3G, 4G, and 5GE towers, and future devices presumably will be able to use all of AT&T’s resources.
Today’s announcement leaves six cities in AT&T’s early 2020 5G launch collection: Boston, Bridgeport, Buffalo, Las Vegas, Louisville, and New York City. One of today’s launch cities, Los Angeles, wasn’t originally included in the carrier’s lists, but it now includes both 5G and 5G+ coverage, including in parts of West Hollywood. 5G and LTE coverage maps for the other cities can be seen here.
Following deployments in those cities, and perhaps others, AT&T reiterates that it will offer nationwide low band 5G coverage in the first half of 2020. The carrier says that its 5G+ network is presently available in parts of 23 cities, offering significantly faster speeds, but “with very limited coverage.” In our testing of low and high band 5G networks , high band currently peaks at performance levels roughly 10 times faster than low band — 2Gbps versus 225Mbps — though AT&T notes that its low band 5G towers offer wide-scale coverage across several-mile areas, while its high band 5G service only covers several blocks.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"T-Mobile completes Sprint merger, promises 'transformative 5G network' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/01/t-mobile-completes-sprint-merger-promises-transformative-5g-network"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages T-Mobile completes Sprint merger, promises ‘transformative 5G network’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn T-Mobile radio engineering SVP Mark McDiarmid.
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After seemingly endless regulatory hurdles at the federal and state levels, T-Mobile announced today that it has completed its merger with Sprint , a deal it says will result in a “transformative 5G network” for consumers and businesses. As previously reported, the merger’s completion marks the end of John Legere’s tenure as T-Mobile’s CEO and the beginning of Mike Sievert’s control over the third-largest U.S. cellular carrier.
Today’s merger will bring together T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s separate but complementary network assets, combining wide but low-speed T-Mobile low band with mid-range, mid-speed Sprint mid band spectrum and short distance but high-speed T-Mobile high band spectrum.
The combined “layer cake” will enable T-Mobile to offer 5G service that switches from fine to good to super-fast based on whatever network assets are locally available, assuming users have devices that can connect to all three types of 5G networks.
For the combined company, the merger critically offers new customer scale and the opportunity for synergies that weren’t available before. The new T-Mobile will now be in the same 100-million-customer ballpark as larger rivals AT&T and Verizon, likely creating additional market pressure with pricing and promotions. On the other hand, T-Mobile is expected to shutter some overlapping Sprint retail locations and has divested some of its network assets and prepaid Boost Mobile customers to Dish Network , which will lead to job changes and some losses — a challenge, given the currently fragile state of the U.S. economy.
Legere’s handoff to Sievert comes a month ahead of the original schedule, which would have seen the famously brash Legere stick around through the end of his contract on April 30. The carrier has promised to maintain the “Un-carrier” spirit and initiatives Legere pioneered as T-Mobile successfully grew from a distant AT&T/Verizon rival to a full-fledged competitor, while “supercharging” them with greater scale.
Federal and state officials delayed the merger multiple times, requiring the carriers to make enforceable service guarantees regarding the scope and speed of coverage. Two major holdout states, New York and California , ultimately decided not to appeal after losing an antitrust lawsuit filed in opposition to the merger.
T-Mobile today said that it will give customers access to “average 5G speeds up to 8 times faster than current LTE in just a few years” and “15 times faster over the next six years,” at which point it will offer 5G to 99% of the U.S. population — with 90% seeing higher than 100Mbps speeds. Additionally, 90% of rural Americans should see average 5G speeds of 50Mbps, faster than current U.S. broadband averages.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Opensignal: U.S. lags behind 7 leading 5G countries in download speeds | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/06/opensignal-u-s-lags-behind-7-leading-5g-countries-in-download-speeds"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opensignal: U.S. lags behind 7 leading 5G countries in download speeds Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks have promised to deliver dramatically faster speeds than their 4G predecessors, and that promise is already being met in almost every country where 5G has rolled out — except the United States. As Opensignal’s latest international network performance comparison reveals, average U.S. 5G download speeds are still hovering below the country’s typical Wi-Fi speeds, an issue the wireless measurement firm attributes to the continued scarcity of U.S. mid band 5G spectrum.
Across Asia-Pacific countries, Europe, and the Middle East, 5G speeds are now multiples of local Wi-Fi averages, which range from 21.4Mbps to 74.5Mbps depending on the country. In top performer Saudi Arabia, 5G (291.2Mbps) averages over 13 times faster than Wi-Fi (21.4Mbps), and nearly 12 times faster than 4G (24.4Mbps); in the United Kingdom, the second-worst performer, 5G (146.8Mbps) is still over 4 times faster than Wi-Fi (34.1Mbps) and 5.5 times faster than 4G (24.9Mbps).
By contrast, U.S. cellular performance continues to lag behind other countries — an issue that was expected to be addressed with the rapid adoption of 5G technology. Businesses and consumers were expected to start merging their mobile and home/office data plans together using 5G hardware that was at least as fast as wired broadband , if not much faster. Instead, localities have held up high-speed 5G small cell deployments over siting concerns , forcing U.S. carriers to rely heavily on lower frequency radio towers , which work over long distances but deliver slow speeds.
The real-world impact is obvious, Opensignal suggests. U.S. Wi-Fi (59.8Mbps) is currently faster than in many countries, and twice as fast as U.S. 4G (27.7Mbps), but 5G averages only 52.3Mbps — slower than Wi-Fi, and not even twice as fast as 4G. That’s a bad start for the next-generation technology, and especially concerning since the U.S. lagged behind much of the developed world during the 4G era. Many parts of the country are still saddled with sluggish cellular speeds well below the standard’s capabilities.
Another issue affecting many 5G deployments is the smaller availability of 5G towers compared with 4G. Even in the Middle East, where 5G was available over 30% of the time to users in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, that percentage pales by comparison with the 86% to 92% availability of 4G there. Consequently, 5G device users still live with 4G performance most of the time. But in the United States, 5G availability was only 12.7% — and slow — while the bottom-performing U.K. offered a meager 5.2% availability for its faster 5G service, compared with nearly 90% for 4G.
If there’s any good news from the report, it’s that 5G is still in early deployment stages, so the numbers will certainly improve; it’s just a question of when, and by how much. In the U.S., higher-speed 5G is certainly coming, both in the form of more high band millimeter wave small cells and additional mid band frequencies as the FCC continues to reclaim them from incumbent users.
Opensignal is already seeing faster speeds on those bands, both in early U.S. millimeter wave deployments and in foreign countries where 5G is largely based on mid band 3.5GHz spectrum.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Verizon's 5G performance is still wildly uneven -- will it be ready for 2020 iPhones? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/24/verizons-5g-performance-is-still-wildly-uneven-will-it-be-ready-for-2020-iphones"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Feature Verizon’s 5G performance is still wildly uneven — will it be ready for 2020 iPhones? Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Like it or not, there’s no single way to characterize all mobile phone users — usage models vary between individuals and even their circumstances on a given day. The person who typically needs cell service only during a daily commute or walk might become dependent on it during a trip or temporary change of life, such as a pandemic. If any broad generalization can be made across users, it’s that many people want consistently fast cellular service throughout the day and night, wherever they may need it.
5G has been marketed as a universal solution to cellular speed concerns, using new technologies to raise both the floor and ceiling for internet performance in public places, homes, offices, and factories. But 21 months after top U.S. carrier Verizon launched the “world’s first” 5G network in four cities , and 16 months after it started offering 5G for mobile phones , its network performance is anything but consistently fast. RootMetrics noted in March that Verizon’s highest 5G availability rate in a given city (Chicago) was around 3% , and that its millimeter wave towers whipsawed between good and great performance in the few places where they’re available. Last month, the BBB’s National Advertising Division took Verizon to task for overhyping its 5G footprint , and subsequently censured AT&T for misleading customers about “5G” performance.
I wanted to experience Verizon’s 5G for myself, but it’s not available in Orange County, California, where I live. So after taking delivery of a brand new Motorola Edge+ phone , I drove up to Los Angeles, one of Verizon’s initial 5G cities — and thus one that’s had plenty of time to improve. Instead, I found the 5G experience almost laughably uneven, like a roller coaster that moves at kiddie speeds 97% of the time, then unexpectedly launches off into space. This wasn’t surprising given RootMetrics’ findings, but since we’re now only a few months away from Apple’s release of the first 5G iPhones, I’m concerned that millions of customers are going to be confused or disappointed with their first 5G experiences, thanks in large part to decisions made by U.S. carriers. Here’s why.
5G was supposed to be simple The promise of 5G was straightforward: Carriers were supposed to deploy new cell towers and phones with faster data speeds and much higher network responsiveness. That’s pretty much what happened in South Korea, China, and several European countries — 5G users in major cities are now streaming videos and downloading apps at 500Mbps to 1Gbps speeds, over 10 times as fast as typical 4G, and businesses are consequently rolling out next-generation content and apps to make use of the massive bandwidth, including high-performance mixed reality headsets.
5G’s rollout in the United States has been … different. Leading carrier Verizon relied on short-distance, high-speed 5G millimeter wave towers in “parts of” some U.S. cities, and its similarly large competitor AT&T did the same. Smaller rival T-Mobile instead focused on installing long-distance, low-speed 5G towers across the country. And before it was absorbed by T-Mobile, Sprint debuted mid-range, mid-speed 5G towers in a handful of markets.
This variety of approaches has left the U.S. with three 5G networks that are mediocre for different reasons. Unlike Asia and Europe, where paying for 5G service means getting faster data wherever 5G is available, there’s currently a non-trivial chance that a phone’s “5G” indicator will light up to indicate little more than 4G-quality service. In Verizon’s case, a stupidly long “5GUWB” badge guarantees faster service, but you’ll have little chance of actually seeing it without relying on a street-specific map.
Verizon’s 5G experience is particularly jarring My colleague Kyle Wiggers tested Verizon’s 5G last year in Providence, Rhode Island, where he had to walk to specifically identified streets to access Verizon’s 5G network. His highest download speed of the day was 1.83Gbps — nearly 40 times faster than typical 4G — but most of his 5G speeds were in the 1Gbps range. That’s still 20 times faster than today’s typical 4G, and around 10 times faster than more performant 4G you’d be lucky to find in some places.
Kyle’s problem was that acquiring a Verizon 5G signal was challenging, even when he was told explicitly where to go to find it. “My Note10 5G loaner repeatedly failed to lock onto a 5G signal even with a clear view of the nearest node,” he said, meaning that he — and other 5G users — would expect to spend most of their cellular time on 4G, not 5G. RootMetrics, which tracks carriers’ speeds across multiple cities, said that Verizon most often delivered 20-40Mbps 4G speeds during that point in time , and now has more markets in the 30-50Mbps 4G range, performance it characterized (apparently without irony) as “consistent and excellent.” From where I stand, the user experience of flipping between 30Mbps and 1.83Gbps depending on your location is neither consistent nor excellent. In the right spot in Los Angeles, I used Verizon’s 5G and Netflix to fully download the two-hour movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in only 26 seconds. On Verizon’s 4G network, that download takes nearly 16 minutes. Like Kyle, I only saw Verizon’s fast 5G speeds in the narrowest of real-world locations, while falling back to much slower 4G everywhere else.
Location, location, location I looked at Verizon’s 5G coverage maps to find testing spots in Los Angeles that would hopefully be easy and quick, and in their current form, the maps default to very simple boxes that are either white (4G), lightly shaded (maybe 5G), or landmarks (definitely 5G). Even though the boxes make clear that Verizon’s 5G isn’t available in most of L.A., you might still think there’s more coverage than there actually is.
If you tap on one of the covered areas, you can zoom in to a different view that reveals how street-specific Verizon’s 5G coverage is. Here, pink means 4G and red means 5G; like Kyle, I could identify supposed 5G intersections and neighborhoods scattered around the city and directly visit them. So I picked a downtown area with a particularly high concentration of red, as well as Venice Beach, to see what that was like. In addition to the Motorola Edge+, I brought a Sprint OnePlus 7 Pro 5G and my 4G T-Mobile iPhone 11 Pro for comparative testing.
To say that Verizon’s 5G was location-dependent would be a profound understatement. One of the guaranteed locations on Verizon’s L.A. maps was the famous Venice Beach boardwalk, and though the 5G signal was indeed available right there , my phone fell back to 4G only a short block away. I was able to hit a rocket-like download peak of 1.987Gbps on 5G, and nearly repeated that feat multiple times with scores upwards of 1.7-1.9Gbps. If I spent my entire day sitting at exactly that spot, and didn’t care about bandwidth or storage limitations, I probably could have downloaded everything worth seeing on Netflix.
Outside the small 5G zone, however, Verizon’s speed dipped to 47Mbps. T-Mobile’s 4G speed, meanwhile, was only 26Mbps at the boardwalk, though it was higher than 77Mbps elsewhere. Sprint clocked over 86Mbps by the boardwalk, but nearly 230Mbps only a short distance away. Coincidentally or not, Verizon’s tiny best-case 5G zone in Venice Beach was also a worst-case example for its rivals.
I also tried to use Verizon 5G in downtown Los Angeles, deliberately selecting areas that were supposed to have 5G service. For instance, the Edge+ struggled to pick up a 5G signal all around Union Station, but the “5GUWB” badge popped on and off at various intersections around Arcadia and North Los Angeles Street. It would appear for half a block, with Ookla’s Speedtest registering download rates ranging from 8.45Mbps to 1.767Gbps — more in the center — then abruptly disappear, giving way to 47-100Mbps 4G speeds. That was roughly the same as Sprint’s (44-94Mbps) and T-Mobile’s (77Mbps) 4G Speedtest results in the same area. On the rare occasions I acquired a Sprint 5G signal there, it was in the 200Mbps range, well below the 480Mbps peak I saw in August 2019 , but within “typical” levels promised by the company.
The near future Although the earliest adopters will have had access to 5G technology for nearly two years by the time Apple releases its first 5G devices, new iPhones are expected to spark U.S. 5G adoption at levels that haven’t been seen by Android rivals, following the same pattern seen with Apple’s first 4G models years ago. That’s the reason carriers have targeted the second half of this year for the next stage of their 5G rollouts. Between July and December, Verizon is expected to offer a second, slower tier of 5G service in roughly half of the United States , comparable to the long-distance, low-band 5G AT&T and T-Mobile will offer nationally during the same time period. Some 4G towers will use digital spectrum sharing (DSS) to simultaneously deliver 4G and 5G service, though this flavor of 5G will likely approximate 4G in speed.
We know generally what that’s like from tests of T-Mobile’s 5G network , which promises a typical 20% improvement over 4G — think 60Mbps rather than 50Mbps — but can exceed 200Mbps under ideal circumstances. In some markets, T-Mobile’s 5G only meets or underperforms its 4G speeds, while in others, 5G is two times faster. Verizon’s and AT&T’s most commonly available 5G will likely have similar performance characteristics, which is to say that many first-wave U.S. iPhone 5G customers will wonder why anyone has made a big deal about 5G.
Above: Rootmetrics’ report on 5G availability and performance illustrates the mixed bag of U.S. speeds and coverage.
In other countries, however, 5G iPhones will blow their predecessors out of the water in cellular speeds. Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean users are seeing 500Mbps to 700Mbps typical performance in major cities , with peaks comfortably above 1Gbps. They’re still subject to 4G fallbacks in uncovered areas, but typically enjoy faster 4G speeds than U.S. carriers have offered. European 5G adoption has been very uneven, but U.S. 5G already lags behind countries including the U.K., Spain, and Switzerland , the latter seeing a 3.67Gbps peak download speed in live network testing last year.
That’s close to Ericsson’s 4.3Gbps milestone and Nokia’s subsequent 4.7Gbps peak, each reached in lab test environments this year.
While individual carriers bear responsibility for these major service quality fluctuations, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Apple tempering 5G performance expectations when announcing the devices — framed, of course, in a positive way. There might be a brief discussion of the new iPhones’ ability to harness whatever a network is capable of, balanced by a passing reference to the still-nascent nature of some countries’ 5G deployments. And there could be a reference to how Apple A14-powered iPhones are better positioned than Android rivals to benefit from high download speeds, with less emphasis on weaker upload speeds or the new iPhones’ comparatively lower camera resolutions.
As a daily iPhone user, I’ve been waiting for both the right 5G phone and a performant 5G network to take the plunge, as I’m looking forward to enjoying super-fast downloads (and at least somewhat faster uploads) no matter where I may be working or traveling. Despite my experiences with Verizon’s network in Los Angeles, I’m hopeful that at least one carrier has compelling 5G service available where I live by year’s end. It’s great that I can download a full movie over 5G in under half a minute if I’m on the boardwalk at Venice Beach. But I don’t think I’m the only person who would much rather be doing something better than watching videos there, and if 5G’s going to shine this year, it’s going to need to be consistently fast at locations other than a handful of landmarks — soon.
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"FCC begins 3.5GHz auction, opening 'prime' mid band spectrum to 5G | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/23/fcc-begins-3-5ghz-auction-opening-prime-mid-band-spectrum-to-5g"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages FCC begins 3.5GHz auction, opening ‘prime’ mid band spectrum to 5G Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn FCC Chair Ajit Pai.
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Although the United States has already seen successful deployments of low and high band wireless spectrum for 5G networks, international carriers have largely focused on mid band spectrum — centered on 3.5GHz-adjacent frequencies — for their early 5G deployments. Following extensive preparations and some delays, the FCC today officially kicked off a nationwide auction of “prime” spectrum in the 3.55 to 3.65GHz range, offering carriers the opportunity to bid on seven mid band slices per county, augmenting their existing low and high holdings.
Auction 105 includes 22,631 “priority access licenses” covering counties across the U.S., effectively turning 70Mhz of spectrum into seven separate 10MHz pieces that can be purchased individually or in bundles. The more spectrum a carrier aggregates , the more bandwidth it will have available to deliver high-speed cellular services, a process aided by 5G’s new ability to combine mid band spectrum with either low or high band spectrum for improved performance.
Mid band spectrum has become desirable in the 5G era, offering longer-distance propagation characteristics than millimeter wave and more open stretches of bandwidth — in some countries — than lower bands, which numerous cellular networks had already put in use. Prior to this auction, Sprint’s 2.5GHz holdings were the closest to “mid band” of any U.S. carrier, and they were recently folded into T-Mobile’s network to enable peak mid band data speeds in the 600-700Mbps range and typical data speeds of 200-300Mbps. The FCC’s latest auction will enable other carriers to compete across all bands with T-Mobile, while giving T-Mobile the option to bolster its existing offerings.
Some countries easily allocated 3.5GHz spectrum to 5G, making it the popular or default standard for offering 5G services throughout China , South Korea , and parts of Europe.
But in the U.S., the FCC had to juggle the needs of potential and incumbent users, including the navy. Consequently, the FCC requires 3.5GHz licensees to implement a spectrum sharing system that provides immediate access to top priority government users as needed, then to priority licensees, while allowing unlicensed CBRS users to access the same spectrum absent other demands.
The start of Auction 105 was originally planned for earlier in the year, but delayed until today due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 270 applicants have been qualified to bid, and though large carriers such as Verizon , AT&T , and Dish Network are expected to chase 3.5GHz spectrum in the auction, regional carriers including U.S. Cellular are likely to bid as well.
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"Opensignal: U.S. 5G speeds slump as other countries leap ahead | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/26/opensignal-u-s-5g-speeds-slump-as-other-countries-leap-ahead"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opensignal: U.S. 5G speeds slump as other countries leap ahead Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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It’s no surprise at this point that U.S. rollouts of 5G networks haven’t delivered on the next-generation cellular standard’s promise, as T-Mobile and AT&T launched low-speed 5G service and Verizon’s higher-speed network remains barely available.
But the performance gap between U.S. and international 5G deployments is growing, a new Opensignal report shows today, and there’s only one piece of good news for American consumers: 5G service is becoming more widely available across the country, mediocre or not.
The new report looks at the average 5G download speeds across the globe, with South Korean users seeing 5.3 times faster average 5G speeds than 4G — 312.7Mbps — followed by Australia (215.7Mbps), Taiwan (210.2Mbps), and Canada (178.1Mbps). Saudi Arabia’s 5G gap is even more pronounced at 14.3 times the speed of 4G (averaging 414.2Mbps), but in the United States the difference is a mere 1.8 times, and slow in both cases: 28.9Mbps for 4G versus 50.9Mbps for 5G. Average U.S. 5G performance was actually slower than in the Opensignal study published in May, while other countries have increased their download speeds.
Consequently, users in several countries have faster 4G connections than the average U.S. 5G speed, which is also the lowest of any country in the Opensignal report, with the worst combined 4G-5G download speed for 5G users — 33.4Mbps, on average. The Netherlands was the second-slowest 5G performer but still delivered average 5G speeds of 79.2Mbps, over 55% higher than the U.S. 5G average, with combined 4G-5G speeds of 68.9Mbps.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! While this performance is attributable to a combination of carrier decisions and limited U.S. availability of mid band spectrum, issues that will likely be addressed in 2021 and 2022, this is far from the first time the U.S. has lagged in cellular speed in comparison to other countries, and it hasn’t meaningfully caught up over time. That’s hugely concerning for 5G’s future, as slow networks could preclude U.S. businesses and consumers from high bandwidth, low latency 5G services such as mixed reality streaming , industrial automation , and autonomous interconnected vehicles , to name just a few.
It could be worse, though. U.S. 5G availability is growing, thanks to widening low band rollouts, and users now have 19.3% 5G availability, ranking above seven of the 12 geographies Opensignal charted. The only listed countries with higher percentages of 5G availability were much smaller states, such as Saudi Arabia (34.4%), Kuwait (29.1%), Hong Kong (26.1%), and South Korea (20.7%), though large and fast 5G adopter China was notably absent from the list, likely due to challenges with data collection in that country.
By comparison, the United Kingdom ranked dead last on this metric, with only 4.5% 5G availability, meaning customers are far less likely to actually get 5G service there — a problem created largely by its decision to abandon Huawei’s controversial 5G networking hardware.
But where users get 5G in the U.K., the average download speed is 133.5Mbps, 2.6 times that of the U.S.
Phones with 5G functionality are available across the world and expected to see a major uptick in adoption when Apple releases its first 5G iPhones later this year. Today’s study suggests users should expect wildly different 5G experiences depending on their locations, with most surveyed countries seeing at least 5 times the performance of 4G while others will barely register as generationally different this year.
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"T-Mobile promises faster 5G for 'thousands' of locations by 2020's end | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/02/t-mobile-promises-faster-5g-for-thousands-of-locations-by-2020s-end"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages T-Mobile promises faster 5G for ‘thousands’ of locations by 2020’s end Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn T-Mobile radio engineering SVP Mark McDiarmid.
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T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network has enjoyed the advantage of breadth without the value of depth, covering more than half of the United States with low band 600MHz signals that are in some cases no faster than 4G.
That’s about to change, the company said today, as it has activated considerably faster 2.5GHz mid band 5G towers in nearly 90 cities and towns and is preparing to reach “thousands more” by the end of 2020. The move could cement T-Mobile’s 5G network as both the nation’s broadest and fastest — a major bragging point for the second- or third-place U.S. carrier.
T-Mobile was among the world’s first carriers to posit a “layer cake” approach to 5G , relying on long-distance but slow 600MHz signals as a blanket-style “coverage layer” everywhere, mid band 2.5GHz to provide faster 5G across most cities and towns, and short distance but fast millimeter wave signals in the most densely populated areas. While it had low and high band spectrum ready to deploy, it had to wait on finalization of its merger with Sprint to acquire and repurpose the 2.5GHz mid band spectrum — a process that it began in earnest earlier this year.
Soon after the merger closed, T-Mobile commenced limited 2.5GHz service in New York City and Philadelphia, later adding Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. to the list. Today, the list has grown by an additional 81 cities and towns, including a handful of locations in the states of California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with narrower deployments in Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
Unlike its 600MHz 5G service, which could peak at around 300Mbps under ideal conditions but commonly delivers 4G-like speeds of only 50Mbps in major cities, T-Mobile’s 2.5GHz 5G promises average speeds of 300Mbps and peak speeds of 1Gbps. That’s up from the 200Mbps average and 600-700Mbps peaks Sprint promised for the same spectrum last year, though performance will vary between locations. Moreover, 2.5GHz signals are capable of penetrating walls and reaching much further than millimeter wave 5G, which so far has been the only version adopted by top U.S. carrier Verizon — a decision that has seriously limited its population coverage.
T-Mobile says it is “on track to light up 1,000 sites per month with 2.5GHz 5G” and will offer the service “in thousands of cities and towns across the country” by the end of 2020, including suburban and rural areas. By comparison, Verizon and AT&T have signaled that they will be bolstering their competing 5G networks with some mix of low and mid band spectrum this year, though T-Mobile says it has nearly 2-3 times as much of that spectrum as AT&T and Verizon, respectively. All three carriers have been active participants in U.S. auctions to acquire more spectrum, “ the mother’s milk of wireless technology ,” in an effort to deliver higher-speed cellular services to customers.
Despite misleading marketing by carriers and 5G standard’s potential for transformatively high bandwidth and network responsiveness , U.S. 5G speeds are currently among the worst in the world.
5G is widely expected to enable everything from large-scale industrial automation to mixed reality streaming and persistent communications between autonomous vehicles, but that depends heavily on new network hardware.
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"Outside Disneyland, Verizon’s 5G network is ready to offer a wild ride | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/19/outside-disneyland-verizons-5g-network-is-ready-to-offer-a-wild-ride"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Outside Disneyland, Verizon’s 5G network is ready to offer a wild ride Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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When Verizon revealed last week that it was finally bringing high-speed 5G cellular service to Orange County, California, I was genuinely thrilled — the carrier’s 5G Home broadband and 5G Ultra Wideband mobile services launched in 2018 and 2019, but have remained unavailable across most of the United States. Now that’s changing: Verizon’s 5G Nationwide service launched last week, and the carrier also claimed that the “fastest 5G network in the world just launched in Anaheim,” home to Disneyland — only a 20-minute drive from my neighborhood. Disneyland is still closed due to COVID-19, but I jumped at the opportunity to see what millions of users should expect from Verizon 5G ahead of the iPhone 12’s release this week.
Long story short: Instead of experiencing miraculously fast 5G at the world’s most magical theme park, I struggled to find a good testing spot for Verizon’s 5G, eventually getting a five-bar signal outside an Anaheim liquor store. And though I didn’t go inside, I should have, as the rollercoaster-like ups and downs of my testing session left me craving a stiff drink.
The best word to describe those ups and downs is “inconsistency,” a problem that has plagued Verizon’s 5G network since 2018, much to the chagrin of testers, prospective users, and advertising watchdogs.
Consistent 5G performance matters because truly transformative changes will only be possible when overall network throughput is increased, and as the past two years have demonstrated, people won’t flock to a network that promises high speeds but delivers them only occasionally and in narrow locations. So Verizon has expanded 5G service, initially by adding more high-speed millimeter wave towers (“5G Ultra Wideband”) in parts of some major cities and more recently by introducing a blanket of dynamically shared 4G/5G spectrum (“5G Nationwide”) across much of the United States. In rollercoaster terms, it’s laying more track so that riders don’t fall off the network as often, or whipsaw as much between peaks and valleys.
I tested Verizon’s 5G with Inseego’s latest MiFi M2100 5G , a portable hotspot with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 inside — the same modem found in many current Android 5G phones and the iPhone 12 family. Before and during my testing, I relied upon Verizon’s most recent 5G coverage map , which shows huge swaths of low band, bright orange-colored “5G Nationwide” coverage, tiny stripes of high band, crimson-colored “5G Ultra Wideband” coverage on specific streets, and smaller patches of light orange-colored “4G LTE” coverage.
Verizon’s map makes a couple of important disclosures in smaller gray print. It says super-fast 5G Ultra Wideband is “available outdoors,” implicitly acknowledging that it’s not available indoors, and also notes that its 5G Nationwide service “includes 4G LTE coverage.” Initially, I read the latter disclosure to mean that 4G users will continue to find 4G coverage in any bright orange 5G area. But after testing with the MiFi 5G, my impression is that either Verizon is not actually delivering “5G Nationwide” service in some of the bright orange areas, or the hotspot was falling back to 4G because Verizon’s 5G service isn’t very good.
I say that because my Anaheim testing results were as bizarre as those I’ve seen in other Verizon 5G locations. Across multiple supposed 5G Nationwide locations, the hotspot — running the latest firmware — never once showed a standard “5G” icon, though the speeds I saw were sometimes faster than typical Verizon 4G. On the other hand, my hunt for 5G Ultra Wideband took me through Anaheim intersections, occasional side streets, and plenty of parking lots; Verizon’s “5G UW” logo appeared and disappeared unpredictably, not matching the map’s crimson locations. Having to weave in and out of traffic just to find 5G made for a stressful testing experience.
When I finally found a five-bar 5G UW signal at Anaheim’s First Stop Liquor, I ran speed tests showing download speeds in the 732-828Mbps range — less than half the 1.5Gbps to 2Gbps peak speeds we’ve seen from Verizon’s 5G network in the past. On a positive note, that was fast enough for me to download the entire 1.25GB movie Borat in roughly two minutes at 1080p HD resolution, making good on the famous 5G promise that users will be able to quickly grab a movie or multiple episodes of a TV series before boarding a plane. But finding that five-bar signal took a while, and at other spots, the UW icon turned on, but the data rate dipped below 600Mbps. In the parking lot of a nearby Carl’s Jr., where Verizon’s maps claimed 5G UW availability, the MiFi offered a 4G icon and speeds in the 51Mbps range.
Verizon’s download speeds were a lot lower in the supposedly “5G Nationwide” service areas of Anaheim and adjacent cities such as Irvine, where I live. In one neighborhood, I saw only 30Mbps, while another was around 50Mbps and a third was in the low 90Mbps range, all 4G-class numbers. I also recorded speeds in the 150Mbps range in several locations. My belief is that we’ll soon see Verizon and competing 5G networks settle closer to 150Mbps on a national average, which while not strictly “transformative 5G” level will be better than what most U.S. users — not all — have seen from 4G.
Above: The speeds of Verizon’s cellular service vary dramatically from location to location.
Note, however, that all of these numbers were recorded outside, sometimes with an open car window but never far from windshield or side window glass, and never indoors, where the numbers are typically lower due to reduced signal strength. Moreover, the performance changed so dramatically from street to street and block to block that it almost felt like an elaborate gag — a network that occasionally reaches a peak but largely keeps shooting you up and down, back and forth, until you just don’t care to look at the numbers any more.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I found Verizon’s best 5G location in Anaheim, or that I tried to canvas either the entire city or county where Verizon 5G is now available. But I frankly think the whole exercise of needing to hunt for good 5G service on a block-by-block basis is insane, and I don’t want you to get the wrong impression if you see breathless reports of 2-4Gbps iPhone 12 cellular speeds this year. It’s clear that those numbers will only be available at very narrow locations, cherry-picked by Verizon and hand-fed to iPhone reviewers to generate positive coverage.
My results are just a snapshot, but I’m willing to bet that they will be fairly representative of the typical user experience; only your own testing will determine whether my 5G experience matches yours. For now, the good news is that as Verizon’s 5G Nationwide networks and its competitors expand, the cellular performance floor will finally start to get higher for millions of people, regardless of how high the ceiling is in some locations. I hope these improvements reach your neighborhood soon so you’ll be able to take advantage of the long-promised potential of the 5G standard.
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"The quick iPhone 12 Pro review: Apple's on 5G and camera autopilot | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/27/the-quick-iphone-12-pro-review-apples-on-5g-and-camera-autopilot"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Review The quick iPhone 12 Pro review: Apple’s on 5G and camera autopilot Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Thirteen years after the first model hit stores, there’s no question that the iPhone is a massive success: Hundreds of millions of active users, unit sales measured in the billions, and a sprawling app economy are just a few of the more obvious signs. Regardless of how much has changed from prior models, every new iPhone matters to an audience of millions, and thus is automatically worthy of attention.
Apple has billed this year’s iPhone 12 family as a big step forward, marking a “leap year” in the company’s words, or a “tick” on the “tick-tock-tock” upgrade cycle Apple has followed with recent iPhones. The marketing focus this time is on new 5G cellular capabilities — “O-M-G-G-G-G-G” speeds — with secondary emphasis on new chip and camera improvements. Yet when you use the most representative model of this year’s four somewhat different configurations, the flagship iPhone 12 Pro , you’ll see that the $999 to $1,299 smartphone looks and works so much like last year’s iPhone 11 Pro that many users will struggle to justify the differences, even if they can identify them.
As you decide whether or not to jump in this year, the executive summary is simple: From the outside, Apple’s latest flagship phone feels like it’s coasting rather than disrupting. But the technologies inside the iPhone 12 Pro collectively constitute a new technological floor that developers, enterprises, and executives need to understand today, as either Apple or its rivals will soon leverage them to create the next wave of major innovations.
iPhone 12 Pro: The 30,000-foot picture Apple announced four different iPhone models in October 2020, shipping two in late October and two in mid November. They are: iPhone 12 mini ($699 and up): Aluminum frame, 5.4″ screen, 2,227mAh battery, and two rear cameras.
iPhone 12 ($799 and up): Aluminum frame, 6.1″ screen, 2,815mAh battery, and two rear cameras.
iPhone 12 Pro ($999 and up): Steel frame, 6.1″ screen, 2,815mAh battery, three rear cameras, and Lidar 3D scanner.
iPhone 12 Pro Max ($1,099 and up): Steel frame, 6.7″ screen, 3,687mAh battery, three rear cameras, and Lidar 3D scanner.
These phones are far more alike than they are different. Each boasts an OLED screen with over 450 pixels per inch of resolution and 1200 nits of maximum brightness for HDR video playback. Apart from metal, camera, and Lidar differences, the first two phones have slightly dimmer screens in normal use, but otherwise all of the same chips and 5G capabilities. Generally speaking, you pick an iPhone Pro if you want more and better cameras, and a non-Pro if you want a smaller screen and/or price tag. Each model comes in three storage capacities and multiple colors.
5G: A mess today, hopefully better tomorrow? Abbreviated “5G,” the next-generation cellular standard can be confusing; if you want details, look back to my prior definitions and low/mid/high band guides.
Over the next decade, 5G will deliver cellular data speeds 10 to 100 times faster than 4G, which dominated the last decade. Downloads that previously took 600 seconds (10 minutes) will, depending on the speed of your nearby 5G towers, take as little as 60 or even 6 seconds, a step change that will enable 4K video streaming, mixed reality experiences, and yet-to-be-imagined future applications.
Every iPhone 12 model has the same basic 5G hardware within a given country: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 modem , which debuted in 2019 and will soon be leapfrogged by the faster and more power-efficient X60.
Consequently, every iPhone 12 supports low and mid band (“sub-6GHz”) 5G; U.S. models also support high band (“millimeter wave”) 5G. This year’s models can achieve multi-gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds on a single band; next year’s models will be able to use sub-6GHz and millimeter wave 5G at the same time for even faster speeds. Given how long Apple waited to embrace 5G, it’s unfortunate that the iPhone 12s showed up late with the X55 instead of arriving first with the X60.
Verizon launched the world’s first 5G network two years ago, and has since hyped multiple Android 5G phones by promising download speeds from 1Gbps (April 2019) to 2Gbps (June 2019) and even 4Gbps (April 2020). Based on our Verizon 5G network tests last week and T-Mobile 5G tests this week, it’s clear that very few users will see even 1Gbps typical speeds on 5G networks right now.
Speedcheck.org ‘s “first weekend of iPhone 12” speed chart illustrates that U.S. iPhone 12 users should expect average 5G speeds slightly above or below 100Mbps where they can get 5G signals. In our tests, speeds generally fall to sub-40Mbps in 4G areas, and approximate 1Gbps only in comically modest parts of major cities. With the new iPhones, users should also expect to see 5G icons even when they’re actually using 4G networks , and whipsaw-class variations between downloads from block to block when walking or driving. 5G hype has made it critically important to understand the difference between “peak” and “average” performance.
In my neighborhood, iPhone 12 Pro peaked at 132Mbps down and 50Mbps up on T-Mobile’s 5G network. That’s around 30% better for downloads and the same for uploads as what I was getting one year ago with T-Mobile’s 4G network on my iPhone 11 Pro; I’ve intermittently seen 4G speeds similar to this “5G” performance in past years, well before the iPhone 12 existed.
Put simply, the iPhone 12 has the necessary 5G capabilities to succeed, but it is depending on carriers to live up to their end of the 5G standard’s promise. Until then, the biggest change should be the percentage of times users get faster than 100Mbps connections, and we’ll have to wait and see how that actually pans out.
Cameras and Lidar: Differences most people will only spot at night (for now) Nearly every major Android smartphone maker used 2020 to introduce higher megapixel counts and stronger zoom capabilities — Samsung already offers 108-megapixel cameras in multiple models, and 200-megapixel sensors are just around the corner. But Apple went in the opposite direction, keeping the iPhone 12 Pro’s cameras at 12-megapixel resolutions and preserving the 0.5x to 2x zoom range.
Above: The iPhone 12 Pro’s camera block (left) looks identical to the iPhone 11 Pro’s, except for the new Lidar scanner.
Consequently, you’ll have a hard time distinguishing the new model’s output from the iPhone 11 Pro’s, except in low light situations: Lens and software improvements help the iPhone 12 Pro gather and process light better than before, so nighttime and dim interior shots are noticeably cleaner and more colorful, as if they were taken at dusk rather than in utter darkness.
Above: The iPhone 12 Pro (left) makes night time photos look considerably clearer and more detailed than the 11 Pro (right).
For creative professionals — at least the subset who shoot using iPhones rather than higher-end dedicated cameras — Apple has also added Dolby Vision HDR video recording and ProRAW photo recording, which will eventually improve the quantity of visual data being recorded by these cameras, as well as the ways their output can be edited later for optimal color and brightness on supported displays. Some videographers will begin using these features now, but most end users won’t see the impact for months if not longer, as only TVs with Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 or newer will fully support the video functionality, and ProRAW photo tools are just beginning to become available.
The iPhone 12 Pro also adds a rear-mounted Lidar 3D scanner, a feature introduced earlier this year in the 2020 iPad Pro.
Jammed into the camera block, the iPhone Lidar circle is smaller than the iPad one, but has the same general functionality: It uses invisible lasers to create dynamic 3D maps of whatever you point at. For now, these maps can be used to improve the speed and accuracy of augmented reality compositing of digital imagery atop live rear camera video, as well as superior rear camera autofocusing in low light conditions.
Above: Polycam enables you to scan real-world objects and environments in 3D, turning them into digital models.
Lidar could wind up being the iPhone 12 Pro’s biggest advantage over competitors. For now, Apple barely supports the feature in its own apps, but a third-party app called Polycam demonstrates how Lidar can be combined with cameras to create 3D scans of objects and spaces — people, not so much. I used Polycam this weekend to import entire rooms into digital form in less than 3 minutes of total scanning and processing time, then rotate and zoom around them with finger gestures. Despite the novelty of making nearly instant 3D scans with a phone, everyone who saw my Polycam models said the same thing: “This is cool, but what are people supposed to do with these models?” Yes, it’s great to add new hardware, but most people want actual software and use cases for it. Your move, Apple.
A14 Bionic: Laptop-class power in your pocket, but to what end? The A14 Bionic CPU and GPU inside every iPhone 12 model was inevitable — in the works for years with global chip manufacturing powerhouse TSMC, and the first consumer chip featuring bleeding edge 5-nanometer fabrication technology.
Without getting overly technical, the A14 nearly shrinks the computing performance of a modern laptop down to pocket size, almost rivaling the speed of the larger A12Z chip found in Apple’s latest iPad Pro tablets. Most iPhone apps won’t take advantage of all that horsepower, and if they did, they would eat the phone’s battery at two or three times its normal rate, but the capacity’s there when you need it.
I benchmarked the iPhone 12 Pro using Geekbench 5.2.5 and got single/multi-core scores of 1583/3688. That’s up roughly 6-18% compared with the same app’s iPhone 11 Pro scores of 1336/3484, but mixed versus the current iPad Pro: 41% faster in single-core (1125) and 20% slower in multi-core (4444). Similarly, Metal GPU test numbers shot up from the iPhone 11 Pro’s 7525 to 9079, a nearly 21% improvement for the iPhone 12 Pro, though it was notably 32% lower than the A12Z’s iPad Pro’s 12023 Metal result.
In numbers and in practice, the iPhone 12 Pro feels a little faster than its predecessor and the latest iPad Pro for common tasks, but doesn’t match the flagship Apple tablet for the most demanding applications. My question is whether anyone cares.
Years ago, Samsung and others offered docks to transform smartphones into desktop or laptop computers, making better use of the pocket devices’ increasing speed, storage, and networking capabilities. Unfortunately, Apple ignored these initiatives, and the result is a family of palm-sized supercomputers shackled by the size of their screens.
It’s also worth noting that Apple isn’t shipping any iPhone 12 apps that are exclusive to this family of devices — there are barely even app features with enhanced functionality this year. So if you’re hoping to show off your new phone, there’s currently little more than a faster, more accurate update to the oft-forgotten Measure app or scant third-party apps to do it.
MagSafe: Unwieldy but thoughtful wireless charging It would be easy to ignore or skip over one of the iPhone 12 family’s tentpole additions — support for new magnetic wireless chargers — because Apple’s MagSafe is somewhat confusing and not incredibly impressive.
For $39, the brand new MagSafe charger combines an oversized two-inch charging puck with a three-foot USB-C cable. You’ll still need to buy a new 20-watt wall adapter to refuel at MagSafe’s full “15-watt” speed.
Above: Apple’s MagSafe Charger for the iPhone shown alongside the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Cable and a MagSafe clear case.
If charging speed is really important to you, you’re better off skipping MagSafe by plugging the iPhone 12 Pro directly into that wall adapter using its included Lightning cable: Doing so restores 50% of the iPhone’s battery power in 30 minutes. Using MagSafe with that wall adapter, you’ll restore only 23% of its battery in the same amount of time, and in my tests with a 2020-vintage MacBook Pro laptop and MagSafe, the iPhone 12 Pro recharged only 16% in the same 30 minutes.
Between its speed and its size, MagSafe only delivers a so-so charging experience. It’s faster than prior and device-agnostic Qi wireless chargers, but there is a gigantic ecosystem of those chargers, now including reasonably priced batteries with both wireless and high-speed wired charging and Qi car mounts with nearly as much convenience, minus Apple’s gigantic circular magnets.
Above: The iPhone 12 Pro now comes with only one pack-in — a USB-C to Lightning cable (shown) — leaving users to purchase wall adapters, headphones, and other accessories. Aukey’s wired and wireless solutions are more affordable than Apple’s.
After testing MagSafe, I’ve decided to return both the charger and Apple’s ugly, overpriced iPhone 12 MagSafe clear case until there’s some really compelling reason to have them; the existing Qi-based docks and Lightning cables that worked with the iPhone 12 Pro’s predecessors all work properly with this model. We’ll have to see if Apple ups the ante for MagSafe over the next year or so.
Battery: The compromise that will force your next upgrade Millions of iPhone owners know firsthand that their devices just don’t work as well after two or so years of daily use. Between natural battery degradation and related processor slowdowns, an iPhone that’s good on day one can become marginal on day 700. Ideally, you’ll buy a phone that starts with more than “good” initial battery life, so when it falls short later, it will still be acceptable.
Correctly anticipating higher battery drain due to 5G, most Android smartphone makers picked larger batteries than prior 4G models, but Apple again went in the opposite direction, using smaller iPhone 12 batteries than comparable iPhone 11 models.
Independent test results unsurprisingly suggested the iPhone 12s deliver fewer hours of run time when used on 5G networks, though A14 chip improvements enable the smaller batteries to last at least as long — sometimes longer — when they’re being used on 4G.
Anecdotally, the iPhone 12 Pro benefits more from mid-day recharges than the last two or three flagship iPhones I’ve owned. After becoming more or less comfortable with my iPhones’ longevity, the 12 Pro’s smaller battery is inducing some range anxiety, and I’m not sure that I’d universally recommend this model to prior iPhone XS or 11 Pro users as a result. Based on Apple’s track record of battery and device size compromises — as well as ignoring years of user pleas to make thicker, longer-lasting devices — I’m nearly 100% certain that the company doesn’t care.
My suspicion is that Apple is already working on a MagSafe external battery pack for the iPhone 12 family that will “fix” the problem it created by shrinking this year’s batteries. And that it will happily offer to sell you a $99 replacement internal battery or $999 replacement phone two or three years from now if you’re concerned about iPhone performance. That’s the Apple way.
Miscellany With watchOS 7 and iOS 14 , Apple has quietly streamlined the process of bringing an Apple Watch over to an upgraded iPhone. You’re automatically prompted to move the Watch pairing from one device to another, and you don’t need to do much beyond authorizing the switch, which then takes place in the background with minimal inconvenience.
Much has been made of the iPhone 12 Pro’s ‘fingerprint magnet’ stainless steel frame and more shatter-resistant Ceramic Shield front glass. In my personal testing with a graphite model, I found fingerprints to be no worse than they were on the space gray iPhone 11 Pro, and I have greater confidence in the screen’s natural resilience than before. While I still plan to use a case at all times, the iPhone 12 Pro’s durability has come a long way from early models.
Apple’s claim that the iPhone 12 family now omits wall adapters and earphones for environmental reasons is at best only partially true and at worst specious. In every country save France, where phones are legally required to bundle earphones to mitigate cellular radiation concerns, the company has passed $60 in added accessory expenses on to consumers without offering free alternatives to those who need them. It’s going to be interesting to watch how this plays out, particularly given overblown concerns over 5G radiation.
Conclusions Having waited two years for the first 5G iPhone — a period that has seen plenty of compelling 5G Android phones — I’m not entirely thrilled with what Apple delivered in the iPhone 12 Pro: It’s wrapped in plenty of 5G hype, but otherwise doesn’t offer much in the way of added user-facing functionality. For those of us who once bought into Apple’s claim that it holds back on adopting new hardware until it can deliver valuable new software and/or services, the iPhone 12 Pro feels like yet another example of an Apple device sold on potential rather than practical benefits.
A larger concern for long-time iPhone fans is that Apple seems to have moved past “tick-tock” and “tick-tock-tock” evolution strategies into something else, such that even the “leap year” iPhone doesn’t feel as visionary or disruptive as any new Samsung S-series flagship.
But despite the fact that each new iPhone looks like a retread of Apple’s prior greatest hits, Apple does more than just fine when it’s merely iterating , and technically it doesn’t need a big redesign to keep selling tens of millions of iPhones every year. Moreover, a superficial focus on form does injustice to the raw capabilities of the hardware inside: As 5G networks, Dolby Vision TVs, and Lidar-dependent applications evolve, the iPhone 12 Pro will be ready for them. Ditto with laptop-class apps, assuming they can be effectively downscaled to a 6.1-inch screen. Apple’s huge user base and profitable app ecosystem guarantee that developers will flock to iOS and these new devices with great ideas.
Appreciating the iPhone 12 Pro’s possible future isn’t enough to prevent it from feeling somewhat disappointing today. In my hand, on its dock, and in my pocket, it doesn’t feel like it’s yet worthy of an upgrade, an issue exacerbated by Apple’s decision to reserve several of this year’s major camera improvements — sensor size, zoom lens, and optical image stabilization upgrades — for the larger iPhone 12 Pro Max. Like many people, I’m not thrilled to have to accept a physically larger and more expensive iPhone to add these capabilities, particularly when so many other smartphone cameras took huge steps forward this year.
Constant iteration may work as a business model for Apple, yet with every new iPhone release, I find myself increasingly longing for one of those big, disruptive leaps forward the company used to be known for. As competent as it is, the iPhone 12 Pro makes me wonder whether those days are now behind us, or just in the hands of hungrier, more foolish companies than today’s Apple.
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"How .tech domains are helping tech startups differentiate their brands | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/29/how-tech-domains-are-helping-tech-startups-differentiate-their-brands"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored How .tech domains are helping tech startups differentiate their brands Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Radix A few years ago, the coveted Consumer Electronics Show (CES) moved their website from www.cesweb.org to www.ces.tech. Why? It helped make their online presence more relevant and brandable. Speaking about this move, then CES Senior Vice President, Communications and Strategic Relationships, Jeff Joseph explained, “We stand for innovation and the promise of a better world made possible by technology. CES is well known as the foremost innovation event in the world and we are happy to have selected a domain name on .tech that conveys what we stand for in a succinct way.” CES, which is known to host the coolest tech launches and over 800 tech startups from all over the world each year, is one of the many tech businesses that have chosen to innovate with their brand in favor of new domain extensions such as . tech. Media giant Viacom, whose leading brands include MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, and Nickelodeon, also chose www.viacom.tech for its tech-community focused website. Intel is another such example. For its IoT and embedded innovation resource centre, Intel chose www.insight.tech as its website name.
It’s not just the global tech businesses that are innovating with their branding; even tech startups are following suit in a big way. In fact, some of the most revolutionary startups of today have picked their domain names on .tech because it allows them to reflect their innovative mindset.
Startups that have chosen .tech domains to brand their websites innovatively Some of the acclaimed startups that have chosen .tech domains for their primary websites are: Asher Kagan, Founder, www.shadow.tech, says about their .tech domain, “Shadow is fundamentally a high-tech company. Shadow’s inventors have strong technical background and the founding team has worked in some of the most advanced technology companies and industries before. We are proud of our tech roots and .tech reflects this origin.” Branding benefits of .tech domains for tech startups One of the most valuable benefits of choosing .tech domains is the all-encompassing nature of the domain extension, which makes it perfect for startups across industries such as retail, finance, media, etc. and across technologies such as machine learning, blockchain, space tech, etc. As a consequence, tech startups no more have to settle for coarse domain names such as www.innowate-technologiez.com. By choosing .tech, a business-relevant domain extension , they can now overcome the branding limitations of generic domain extensions such as .com, .co, .us, .co.uk, etc.
Here are some of the most important reasons why you should choose a .tech domain for your startup: 1. .tech domains are strategic for your tech brand positioning www.themightytech.com is not available to buy. Image source: GoDaddy.com www.themighty.tech is available to buy. Image source: GoDaddy.com For example, consider www.brilliant.tech. Brilliant creates technology that makes it fun and easy to interact directly with your home. With a .tech domain, they have been able to choose a strategic online identity which cuts through the noise and attracts attention immediately.
2. .tech domains make your domain name keyword rich New domain extensions are as good as any other extension as far as search engine ranking is concerned. In fact, Google went on the record saying, “New domain name endings are not treated any differently than traditional domain name endings like .com or .org. Domain names with new endings are shown in search just like any other domain name.” This opens up a great opportunity for you to choose a new domain extension that is industry-relevant and business-relevant for your startup. For example, consider the keyword-rich domain name www.nextenergy.tech. Just by looking at the domain name, one can guess that the business is into energy technology. This goes a long way in establishing a strong brand positioning for a business.
3. .tech domains add a layer of meaning and relevance to your website address ‘Tech’ is one of the most intuitive words in the context of business and innovation. This makes .tech domains a logical choice for tech startups looking to build a brand that is relevant not just to the tech industry but to all stakeholders, including investors, customers and media.
As an example, for brand name ‘Peach’, consider the domain names www.peach.com and www.peach.tech. While the former is a generic domain name which does not communicate anything about the business, the latter explains that it is a tech brand called ‘Peach’.
Akin to this, Paul Cheek, Founder, www.vempathy.tech, says, “We chose www.vempathy.tech domain name because it is most relevant to the business that we are building. Our vision is to help companies build empathy with their customers using video analysis technology so a .tech domain name was relevant for us.” Above: www.vempathy.tech, powered by IBM Watson.
4) .tech domains give your startup access to the Startup League community An additional and quite valuable advantage of choosing .tech domains is that it gives your startup access to the Startup League.
It’s a startup-support community that offers sponsorship to early-stage startups to exhibit at some of the biggest tech events, along with digital marketing boost, media shout outs, and branding support. With the support that the Startup League offers, you can gain massive brand visibility among investors, media, customers, and industry influencers. The Startup League is a unique initiative by Radix, which owns and operates .tech domains.
So, give your tech startup a solid brand positioning and a massive marketing push by choosing an innovative domain name. If you are building the future, build it on a .tech domain.
Sponsored posts are content produced by a company that is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. Content produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact [email protected].
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Amazon researchers use AI to improve the recognition of curved text | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/26/amazon-researchers-use-ai-to-improve-ocr-for-curved-text"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon researchers use AI to improve the recognition of curved text Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Comparison of ground truth bounding polygons: these images show the difference between CTW-1500’s line-level information and Total-Text’s word-level bounding polygons.
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Optical character recognition (OCR), or the conversion of images of handwritten or printed text into machine-readable text, is a science that dates back to the early ’70s. But algorithms have long struggled to make out characters that aren’t parallel with horizontal planes, which is why researchers at Amazon developed what they call TextTubes. They’re detectors for curved text in natural images that model said text as tubes around their medial (middle) axes. In a paper describing their work, the coauthors claim that their approach achieves state-of-the-art results on a popular OCR benchmark.
As the researchers explain, scene text is typically broken down into two successive tasks: text detection and text recognition. The first involves localizing characters, words, and lines using contextual clues, while the second aims to transcribe their content. Both are easier said than done — text in the wild is affected not only by deformations, but by viewpoint changes and arbitrary fonts.
The team’s solution is a “tube” representation of the text reference frame that captures most of the variability, taking advantage of the fact that target text is usually a concatenation of characters of similar size. It’s formulated as a mathematical function that enables the training of machine learning scene text detectors, in contrast to traditional approaches that use overlap- and noise-prone rectangles and quadrilaterals to capture text information.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers evaluated TextTubes’ performance on CTW-1500, a data set consisting of 1,500 images collected from natural scenes and image libraries and over 10,000 text instances with at least one curved instance per image, and on Total-Text, which contains roughly 1,255 training images and 300 test images with one or more curved text instances. They report that they achieved industry-leading results with 83.65% accuracy on CTW-1500, compared with the closest method’s 75.6% accuracy.
“Modeling an instance’s medial axis and average radius … captures information about the instance overall,” wrote the paper’s coauthors. “On datasets that consist of individual words, such as Total-Text, our model is able to achieve state-of-the-art performance. On datasets that have line-level annotations, such as CTW-1500, our model is able to better capture textual information along an instance’s separate words.” Assuming TextTubes makes its way into production someday, it could be a boon for enterprises that rely heavily on OCR to conduct business. It’s estimated that paper remains in over 80% of digital processes; roughly 97% of small businesses still use paper checks. That’s perhaps why the OCR solutions market is anticipated to be worth $13.38 billion by 2025, according to Grand View Research.
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"Drizly's booze delivery service expands into Canada, its first international market | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2016/02/17/drizlys-booze-delivery-service-expands-into-canada-its-first-international-market"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Drizly’s booze delivery service expands into Canada, its first international market Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Beer Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Drizly is launching in its first international market today, as the Boston-based startup expands its on-demand booze delivery service to Canada.
Above: Drizly for Android Founded in 2012, Drizly lets you search for and order beer, wine, and spirits to your door within the hour, using nothing but your smartphone. It’s currently available in almost 20 markets across the U.S., and its move across the border into Canada, while a relatively minor maneuver on the surface, is a potent symbolic move nonetheless.
Drizly’s expansion into Edmonton, Alberta, comes as a result of a tie-up with Liquor Stores N.A. (LSNA), one of North America’s biggest liquor retailers and the parent company of Liquor Depot.
“This partnership marks a major milestone in our company’s young history and we look forward to making this service available to Edmonton residents — especially in these colder months,” explained Nick Rellas, CEO and cofounder of Drizly. In other words, people like to get drunk when it’s cold outside.
Today’s news comes just a few hours after New York-based Thirstie acquired DrinkFly to bring a little consolidation to an increasingly fragmented market, with the likes of Minibar , Flaviar , BrewDrop , Ultra , Swill , Sqyre , and Saucey all vying for your hard-earned booze dollars. This is before we mention the likes of Amazon , Postmates , and Instacart , which also offer alcohol delivery services as part of their broader offerings.
Drizly isn’t the first on-demand alcohol service to expand internationally, as Thirstie launched in Canada last October, kicking off with Toronto and Ottawa.
But Drizly has claimed almost $18 million in funding — among the highest of its many peers in the space — so it’s a notable move from the U.S. company.
Rellas also confirmed to VentureBeat that Drizly has been in discussions with retailers and regulators in additional countries, though there is no timescale on when further international launches may happen.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Bringg raises $25 million to facilitate last-mile deliveries | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/15/bringg-raises-25-million-to-facilitate-last-mile-deliveries"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Bringg raises $25 million to facilitate last-mile deliveries Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Bringg offers a delivery logistics platform.
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The delivery logistics market is enormous. A recent study projects it will reach $29.06 billion by 2027, driven by increasing commercial and industrial demand.
One company that’s riding the wave pretty skillfully is Bringg , a Tel Aviv and Chicago startup cofounded in 2013 by Lior Sion, previously CTO of Gett and Clarizen, and Raanan Cohen, the former founder and CEO of MobileMax. Buoyed by clients like Panera and the largest global McDonald’s franchise (Arcos Dorados), along with others in over 50 countries, it’s flying high and raising capital as it sets its sights on expansion.
Bringg today announced that it has raised a $25 million series C funding round from Siemens-backed global venture firm Next47, along with existing investors including Salesforce Ventures, Aleph VC, OG Ventures, Cambridge Capital, Coca-Cola, Ituran, and Pereg Ventures. It comes after the firm secured $10 million in January 2018, bringing its total VC haul to $52 million.
Above: Bringg’s management dashboards.
The startup’s product suite — self-descriptively dubbed Delivery Logistics Management — consists of modules designed to streamline fulfillment processes for retailers, grocery chains, consumer goods companies, and restaurants. Among them is an API for delivery quotes and a reverse logistics tool that anticipates unsuccessful deliveries. Through Bringg, order recipients get options like self-service delivery fallback, which allows them to reroute attempted deliveries without having to reach out to customer service. And on the driver side of the equation, there’s live tracking maps and a secure messaging component that allows customers to provide instructions to delivery people.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bringg handles minutiae like proof of delivery, route optimization, customer feedback, and dispatching, in addition to things like continuous items tracking, integration with internet of things logistics hardware, payment collection, and warehouse operations. According to CEO Guy Bloch, the goal is to empower delivery managers by giving them a real-time view of what’s going, all while freeing them from having to perform tasks like plotting out routes and haggling with drivers.
Notably, Bringg’s platform underlies Spark Delivery, Walmart’s pilot last-mile delivery program targeted at online order fulfillment. Bringg sends customers alerts as deliveries make their way toward residences or places of business, and it optimizes driver schedules and automatically dispatches orders.
Coca-Cola, meanwhile is using Bringg to facilitate equipment repair, stock products on store shelves, and more in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. And Bringg’s technology is the cornerstone of Panera’s delivery service.
“This is a watershed moment for Bringg,” Bloch said. “As the business goes into hyper-growth mode, our teams must expand across all departments … We are on a mission to equip enterprises with the technology platform they need to orchestrate successful delivery operations — providing their management and logistics teams with the tools they need to not only survive but thrive in this exciting new landscape.” Bring currently employs over 70 people, and plans to hire more across its offices in Israel, Illinois, and New York.
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"Bond raises $15 million to bring last-mile deliveries and nano distribution centers to online retailers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/28/bond-raises-15-million-to-bring-last-mile-deliveries-and-nano-distribution-centers-to-online-retailers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Bond raises $15 million to bring last-mile deliveries and nano distribution centers to online retailers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Bond cofounders Asaf Hachmon (CEO) & Michael Osadon Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Bond , a New York-based startup that offers ecommerce companies delivery and distribution center services, has raised $15 million in a round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, MizMaa Ventures, and TLV Partners.
Founded in 2019, Bond has developed the technology and infrastructure to let direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands quickly deliver their products and more easily accept returns. This helps smaller companies keep apace with the likes of Amazon, as it gives them access to an on-demand delivery network and Bond’s “nano distribution centers” (NDCs) in neighborhoods near where the products are to be delivered.
On the software side, Bond is an application programming interface (API) that companies integrate into their own ecommerce apps and websites to offer deliveries. Bond also enables integrations with popular ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Shippo, Magento, and WooCommerce.
Through these various integrations, retailers can give their customers access to “last-mile” delivery services. Available slots cover three-hour same-day delivery windows if the order is placed before 1p.m., or slots for the next day if the order comes in later. Deliveries can be tracked in real time, and customers can communicate with the courier through the app, as well as scheduling someone to collect an item if they want to send it back.
Above: The name’s Bond… Underpinning all this are the physical distribution centers Bond has opened in strategic locations in neighborhoods across New York City. The company plans to start targeting other U.S. markets in the coming years.
For now, Bond manages delivery and storage for more than 30 brands in the Big Apple from six distribution centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and it has also partnered with third-party distribution centers to offer deliveries to some locales in Queens and New Jersey. Bond said that by March it plans to open another six NDCs in the New York metro area, with dozens more to follow as it targets new neighborhoods and cities throughout 2020 and beyond.
Above: A Bond nano distribution center (NDC) in NYC This represents part of a broader trend in which retailers, including grocery giants like Walmart and Safeway owner Albertsons , are building smaller urban fulfillment centers near their existing stores to cater to the growing number of orders placed online. Emerging startups such as Israel’s Fabric , which recently secured $110 million in funding , and Canada’s Attabotics are also building businesses around “microfulfillment centers” designed to expedite shipping in space-limited city centers.
Bond said it currently manages 15,000 deliveries each month and covers everything from mattresses to groceries. It charges for each service required, including delivery, storage, and other “post-purchase experiences,” such as fulfillment (picking and packing), according to specific brand guidelines.
Pricing varies, but the company said deliveries in Manhattan and Brooklyn should cost between $8 and $12 per item, depending on the weight and number of delivery windows. Storage prices depend on the number of pallets and frequency of use.
Post-purchase experience Above: A Bond delivery vehicle Bond was born out of an Israeli online grocery startup called Shookit , which was also backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and has developed much of the technology behind Bond over the past three years. Shookit’s cofounders elected to spin out the technology as its own New York-based company and offer it to other online retailers — a new management team is now leading Shookit out of Tel Aviv.
At its core, Bond promises to help online retailers ensure better customer service after a purchase has been made. Companies typically have limited control over the customer experience once a product has been dispatched, which is something that Bond hopes to change.
“Last-mile delivery is like satisfaction Death Valley,” said Bond cofounder and CEO Asaf Hachmon. “Online brands spend tons of money on ensuring consumers have the absolute best user experience while on their website, yet are forced to entrust couriers to deliver products with that same level of care and attention — and all too often they don’t. We learned that firsthand at Shookit, and it’s why we created Bond.” Nabbing a major Silicon Valley investor like Lightspeed Venture Partners is a notable milestone for Bond. Lightspeed has previously invested in such ecommerce startups as Bonobos, which was acquired by Walmart in 2017 , and lending startup Affirm, which was cofounded by PayPal co-creator Max Levchin.
“We’re investors in many ‘web native’ and direct-to-consumer brands and came to know their challenges up close,” added Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Tal Morgenstern. “One of the biggest challenges these brands are facing is last-mile delivery. Customer experience is very much at the core of these brands, but this important touch point with the end user in the real world is often handled by third parties and can be destructive if handled poorly. With Bond, brands can tailor the customer experience and extend their reach to the very doorstep of every customer.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"UPS will now use dynamic routing to get parcels to you on time | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/29/ups-will-now-use-dynamic-routing-to-get-parcels-to-you-on-time"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages UPS will now use dynamic routing to get parcels to you on time Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO - AUGUST 1, 2018: A UPS (United Parcel Service) truck driver makes a delivery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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UPS is bringing dynamic routing to its on-road integrated optimization and navigation (ORION) platform, as the package delivery and logistics giant looks to reduce the number of miles traveled, fuel consumed, and CO 2 emitted.
For context, UPS delivers some 21 million packages globally each day, with many UPS drivers making well over 100 stops per shift. Figuring out the optimum route that each driver should travel to expedite deliveries (and reduce costs) is a challenge given the sheer number of combinations available. It’s generally accepted that avoiding left-turns is a good thing due to the idling involved, which means that maximizing the number of right turns is desirable — but computing all the possible permutations for this across 100 delivery destinations is a task of herculean proportions. And that is what ORION is essentially about.
According to UPS, ORION has saved it around 100 million miles per year since its inception, which translates into 10 million gallons of fuel and 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, reducing just one mile each day per driver can save the company up to $50 million annually.
UPS first debuted ORION back in 2012, though it wasn’t fully deployed until around 2016. In a nutshell, ORION leans on advanced algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to optimize journeys for 66,000 routes across North America and Europe, reducing miles traveled and consequently fuel and money expended. Back in 2018, UPS added UPSNav functionality to ORION, which ushered in detailed turn-by-turn directions to guide drivers to specific drop-off locations such as loading docks or entrances that may not be immediately visible from the street.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Above: UPS’ Diad 5 device with navigation screen Since at least 2015, UPS has promised that dynamic optimization was firmly on its agenda, and that is what it’s unveiling today.
Rerouting Anyone who has used Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation will be familiar with the real-time nature of it — it can look at the roads ahead and offer alternative routes if there is congestion, for example. And that is effectively what UPS is now offering its drivers, except it’s tailored specifically for drivers with 100 pit-stops to make.
Any number of unforeseen events can collude to affect the estimated journey time of a delivery driver — congestion, weather, and even new packages that enter the system for collection.
It’s also worth noting that dynamic routing doesn’t just bring benefits to UPS’ bottom line, it’s also about improving its reputation with consumers. A bad road accident could lead to a person’s package being delayed — but that person generally won’t know or even care about the reasons if it means that the delay has made them late for work. Thus, more accurate data enables UPS to provide more accurate notifications for estimated delivery times.
“ORION is purpose-built for local UPS delivery drivers, many of whom complete an average of 135 stops each day,” Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer, said. “The new dynamic optimization component will improve the accuracy of UPS delivery time estimates and give our customers better visibility into their shipments.” Other companies operating in this realm, such as logistics software provider Descartes, have offered dynamic routing as standard for a while. But UPS is one of the biggest delivery and logistics companies in the world, with a fleet of around 123,000 cars, vans, tractors, motorcycles, and other vehicles; thus, being able to dynamically reroute drivers is a notable evolution for its in-house software.
In related news, UPS also recently won FCC approval to begin commercial drone deliveries, and just today it announced a tie-up with Matternet to deliver medical supplies via drone at UC San Diego Health. So we can perhaps expect the UPS fleet to be expanding vertically in the coming years.
UPS said that it will begin to roll out route optimization gradually over the coming year.
Waymo and Arrival partnerships In somewhat related news, UPS announced that it has invested an undisclosed sum in U.K.-based automaker Arrival, from which it ordered 10,000 electric trucks that are scheduled to be trialed in London and Paris later this year following a pilot in 2018. Over the next four years, the companies hope to deploy trucks across Europe and North America, at which point UPS might purchase 10,000 additional vehicles.
Arrival’s trucks — which are in the prototype stage — can travel roughly 155 miles on a single charge. Uniquely, they’re modular such that everything below the cabin floor, including the brakes, steering, adn suspension, can be easily swapped out or customized.
UPS also revealed it will partner with Alphabet self-driving vehicle subsidiary Waymo to deliver packages. Waymo’s driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans will shuttle packages from UPS Stores in the Metro Phoenix area to the UPS Tempe hub as part of a test this fiscal quarter, with the goal of transitioning into long-term operations in the future.
For the pilot, Waymo says its vehicles will drive autonomously with a trained operator on board to monitor transportation operations. “We’re confident this strategic partnership with UPS will help us deliver on our goal to improve customer service and network efficiency, and ultimately, make roads safer,” said the company in a statement.
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"DispatchTrack raises $144 million to optimize delivery routes with AI | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/12/dispatchtrack-raises-144-million-to-optimize-delivery-routes-with-ai"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages DispatchTrack raises $144 million to optimize delivery routes with AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Logistics startup DispatchTrack today announced it raised $144 million in the company’s first-ever financing round. CEO Satish Natarajan says it will be used to support product research and development, as well as business, segment, and geographic expansion.
The logistics market is an increasingly attractive investment in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic. With customers either choosing or being mandated to stay at home, DispatchTrack says it’s seeing growth on the end-customer side as well as from ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores. Even pre-pandemic, last-mile delivery was fast becoming the most expensive part of the supply chain, with research firm Capgemini pegging the percentage of costs at 41%.
DispatchTrack was founded in 2010 by Satish Natarajan and Shailu Satish, a husband-and-wife team who focused on the furniture industry before expanding into building materials, appliances, food and beverage distribution, restaurants, field and home services, and third-party logistics. Their company now offers a range of services including route optimization, reservations, billing and settlement, and omnichannel order tracking.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! DispatchTrack’s route optimization system allows users to control various delivery parameters, with a dashboard that presents optimizers for scheduling thousands of stops for hundreds of trucks. Calendar-based templates can be designed within DispatchTrack’s platform for upcoming holiday weeks and seasonal fluctuations to apply rules, constraints, and combinations of routing strategies to each order.
DispatchTrack users can classify customers into tiers to ensure that they’re serviced promptly. And DispatchTrack’s Route Advisor gives every decision (including adding late orders) in the route editor a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, determined by predicting whether the decision will improve costs, meet delivery time window constraints, or maintain arrival consistency.
DispatchTrack offers a mobile app used by “thousands” of drivers that works offline and boasts features like proof of delivery. Clients can customize their terms and confirmation statements, as well as the documentation that indicates goods were accepted by end-customers. To prevent false liabilities, the app walks couriers through a checklist of steps, including snapping pictures (or recording videos) and noting dates and locations. And to meet regulations requiring that drivers be “satisfied” that delivery vehicle parts are in good working order, the app provides drivers the ability to fill out forms and store them for audit at any point in the future.
On the customer side, DispatchTrack facilitates calls, texts, and emails to confirm delivery appointment times. (Companies who opt to do so can embed an order-tracking widget on their website.) On the day of scheduled deliveries, it allows drivers to push out calls along with live estimated time to arrivals, while at the same time letting customers call in to confirm their information.
This all works in tandem with DispatchTrack’s reservation system, which streamlines the booking process. Customers are given a choice of appointments. As these appointments are booked, the system deducts from available capacity so that the next customer won’t see appointments that would result in overbooking. Capacity can be calculated at the service level or by geographic region (i.e., by ZIP code or geocoding), as well as via API, so that it can be connected to an existing point-of-sales system.
Ony any given day, third-party apps written on top of DispatchTrack’s core data call the API 60 million to 80 million times. And in any given week, the company creates and maintains 2 million to 3 million new pieces of delivery-related content, such as picture and driver notes.
DispatchTrack also handles billing, settlement, and social reviews to the extent that it offers programmable rules and allows the import of data via CSV. It automatically calculates things like fuel surcharge, making reports available in a timeline and optionally requiring managers to sign off on billing orders. And post-delivery, DispatchTrack can present customers with a survey and an option to post to Google Reviews directly from their phones.
DispatchTrack competes with startups like FarEye , SourceDay , and Flock Freight in the global logistics space, which is anticipated to be worth $15.5 trillion by 2023. Uber offers a service called Uber Freight , to which it recently committed another $200 million as part of a major expansion. San Francisco-based startup KeepTruckin last year secured $149 million to further develop its shipment marketplace, and Next Trucking closed a $97 million investment. For its part, Convoy raised $400 million at a $2.75 billion valuation to make freight trucking more efficient.
But DispatchTrack says it’s doing brisk business, with over 60 million deliveries a year for over 1,100 customers including Ryder, Mattress Firm, and Poolman.
DispatchTrack is based out of San Jose, California, with a staff of 70 employees across offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Hyderabad and Mysore, India. In conjunction with its fundraising, which Spectrum Equity led, Spectrum’s managing director Vic Parker and VP Adam Gassin will join DispatchTrack’s board of directors.
“We spent the last 10 years refining our product and service, and we have received validation from customers across industries and geographies,” said Satish. “Now, with Spectrum’s partnership, we are ready to scale and maximize the potential of DispatchTrack. We are excited about this new stage in our continued growth.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,084 | 2,019 |
"Amazon reports $70.0 billion in Q3 2019 revenue: AWS up 35%, subscriptions up 34%, and 'other' up 44% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/24/amazon-earnings-q3-2019"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon reports $70.0 billion in Q3 2019 revenue: AWS up 35%, subscriptions up 34%, and ‘other’ up 44% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon today reported earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2019, including revenue of $70.0 billion, net income of $2.1 billion, and earnings per share of $4.23 (compared to revenue of $56.6 billion, net income of $2.9 billion, and earnings per share of $5.75 in Q3 2018 ). North American sales were up 24% to $42.6 billion, while international sales grew 18% to $18.3 billion.
Analysts had expected Amazon to earn $68.81 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $4.62. The retail giant thus beat on revenue but missed on earnings per share. The company’s stock was up about 1% in regular trading, and down 7% in after-hours trading. Amazon gave fourth quarter revenue guidance in the range of $80.0 billion and $86.5 billion, compared to a consensus of $87.37 billion from analysts.
AWS, subscriptions, and ‘other’ Amazon Web Services (AWS) continued to be the star of the show, growing 35% in sales to $9.0 billion. But the star isn’t shining as brightly as before. In Q2 2019 , AWS growth fell to 37% — the first sub-40% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. We know now that wasn’t a blip — AWS growth continues to slow down. Nonetheless, AWS still accounted for about 13% of Amazon’s total revenue for the quarter. AWS is the cloud computing market leader, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Subscription services were up 34% to $5.0 billion. That would mainly constitute Amazon Prime , which the company has expanded to offer deals at places like Whole Foods.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Amazon’s “other” category, which mostly covers the company’s advertising business, was up 44% to $3.6 billion in revenue. The company knows plenty about what its customers want to buy, or even don’t want to buy, and it’s increasingly leveraging that for its advertising business. “It’s still early and what we’re focused on really at this point is relevancy — making sure that the ads are relevant to our customers, helpful to our customers,” CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the earnings call. “And to do that we use machine learning, and it’s helping us to drive better relevancy” he added.
Prime Day, annual hardware event, and Alexa “We are ramping up to make our 25th holiday season the best ever for Prime customers — with millions of products available for free one-day delivery,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “Customers love the transition of Prime from two days to one day — they’ve already ordered billions of items with free one-day delivery this year. It’s a big investment, and it’s the right long-term decision for customers. And although it’s counterintuitive, the fastest delivery speeds generate the least carbon emissions because these products ship from fulfillment centers very close to the customer — it simply becomes impractical to use air or long ground routes. Huge thanks to all the teams helping deliver for customers this holiday.” Bezos talked about Prime Day last earnings report, even though it falls in Q3. Now he’s back at it again. After all, Prime Day is the largest shopping event in Amazon history, and this year sales from the two-day event (July 15 and July 16) surpassed the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Next, Amazon is looking towards the holiday season — Q4 is naturally the company’s biggest quarter.
Arguably more important was Amazon’s annual hardware event last month, where it launched Echo Studio , Echo Glow, Echo Flex, an oven , and Echo Frames.
There were also plenty of Alexa updates , including Alexa Guard , a doorbell concierge , and a multilingual mode.
As always, Alexa was mentioned many times in the company’s press release, even though Amazon is nowhere near ready to break out the voice assistant in its earnings reports. Amazon reemphasized that more than 85,000 smart home products from over 9,500 unique brands can be controlled with Alexa. Additionally, Amazon listed its new Echo devices, Fire TV products, and Fire TV apps (including today’s Apple TV release ).
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,085 | 2,019 |
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and 'other' up 41% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/30/amazon-earnings-q4-2019"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon today reported earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2019, including revenue of $87.4 billion, net income of $3.3 billion, and earnings per share of $6.47 (compared to revenue of $72.4 billion, net income of $3 billion, and earnings per share of $6.04 in Q4 2018 ). North American sales were up 22% to $53.6 billion, while international sales grew 14% to $23.8 billion.
Analysts had expected Amazon to earn $86.01 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $4.04. The retail giant thus easily beat on revenue and on earnings per share. The company’s stock was flat in regular trading, and up 11% in after-hours trading. Amazon gave first quarter revenue guidance in the range of $69 billion and $73 billion, compared to a consensus of $71.61 billion from analysts.
AWS growth in the 30s three quarters in a row Amazon Web Services (AWS) growth continues to slow down. In Q2 2019 , AWS growth fell to 37% — the first sub-40% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. Then we saw 35% growth in Q3 2019 and now 34% in Q4 2019.
$AMZN AWS revenue growth – Q1 2017: 43% – Q2 2017: 42% – Q3 2017: 42% – Q4 2017: 45% – Q1 2018: 49% – Q2 2018: 49% – Q3 2018: 48% – Q4 2018: 45% – Q1 2019: 41% – Q2 2019: 37% – Q3 2019: 35% – Q4 2019: 34% https://t.co/STGI34drwX — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) January 30, 2020 VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! AWS is the cloud computing market leader, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. High-percentage growth can’t continue unabated. And for a market leader, growth of 34% in sales to $9.95 billion is nothing to scoff at. Overall, AWS still accounted for about 11% of Amazon’s total revenue for the quarter.
Subscriptions: 150 million paid Prime members Subscription services were up 32% to $5.24 billion. This segment mainly constitutes Amazon Prime , which the company has expanded to offer deals at places like Whole Foods.
Keeping in line with this strategy, Amazon announced today that Prime members now get free delivery through Amazon Fresh, which normally costs $14.99 per month.
Amazon Prime membership was the main takeaway that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wanted to focus on this quarter. He shared that Amazon now has over 150 million paid Prime members, up from 100 million Prime members in April 2018.
“Prime membership continues to get better for customers year after year. And customers are responding — more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world,” Bezos said in a statement. “We’ve made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to U.S. customers with Prime’s free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year. Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 U.S. cities and towns. Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year, and Amazon Originals received a record 88 nominations and 26 wins at major awards shows. A huge thank you to teams across Amazon for their dedicated work to build, innovate, and deliver for customers this holiday.” “Other” (ads) saw the most growth Finally, Amazon’s “other” category, which mostly covers the company’s advertising business, was up 41% to $4.78 billion in revenue. The company knows plenty about what its customers want to buy, or even don’t want to buy, and it’s increasingly leveraging that for its advertising business. In its release, Amazon noted that during the holiday season, the best selling Amazon devices were Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote, and Echo Show 5. But in typical Amazon style, it didn’t share exact sales figures for those products.
As always, Alexa was mentioned many times (13, to be exact) in the company’s press release, even though Amazon won’t break out the voice assistant in its earnings reports. The company noted that it announced Alexa integrations with new automotive brands at CES 2020 , including Fiat Chrysler, Lamborghini, and Rivian.
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"Amazon is embracing surveillance-as-a-service | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/24/amazon-is-embracing-surveillance-as-a-service"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon is embracing surveillance-as-a-service Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Today, Amazon rolled out over a dozen new devices and services, including more dynamic ways to speak with Alexa and a cloud gaming service named Luna.
The highly produced showcase has been held every September for a few years now, and as the biggest Alexa event of the year, it casts a spotlight on Amazon’s ambitions. Last year, a major theme was that Amazon wants you to use its recommendation engines, and this year the message couldn’t be clearer: Amazon is in the business of selling surveillance-as-a-service.
Each of these features and products — from live video of your car’s interior to home surveillance — is designed to lead down a rabbit hole to a paid service. For example, Alexa Guard , which turns Echo speakers into listening devices when people are away from home, was free at launch a few years ago. A free version still exists, but today Amazon launched Alexa Guard Plus , a paid $5 a month service. These products and services reveal an orchestrated strategy to slow-walk people into not only accepting surveillance of virtually every aspect of their lives but paying for it — despite the fact that normalization of surveillance allows Amazon to flip a profit at all points, from partnering with cities and police departments to negative Neighbors app activity that exacerbates fears of getting pulled over by the police. Once a moratorium ends in 2021, Amazon will be able to sell facial recognition to police too.
If you followed the spate of bad news about Ring in the past year – stories of racial profiling, partnerships with more than 1,300 police departments nationwide, and the hacking of a camera in an eight-year-old’s room — this strategy may come as little surprise.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! To advance its surveillance-as-a-service offerings, Ring today introduced the Always Home Cam, a drone that maps the interior of your home and then flies around for periodic inspections or remote flights. The Echo Home 10 smart display Amazon introduced today is designed to swivel so it can follow you during a video call or when you’re speaking with Alexa. People dealing with the deluge of Zoom calls that are part of our modern reality may find practical value in a device that follows them while they’re on video calls.
But I can speak from experience here: Devices that follow people from room to room will freak out your guests. That might not matter as much during the pandemic when people have far fewer guests inside their homes, but I had a Jibo in my home during a birthday party a few years back, and I can tell you some people are mortified by a device that detects your presence and swivels to face you. Perhaps Jibo’s human headlike shape and digital face pushed people into a part of the uncanny valley the Echo Show 10 can avoid, but owners of these devices shouldn’t be surprised if this feature disturbs visitors.
But Echo Home 10 doesn’t just swivel to follow you. When you’re out, the device doubles as a home security system, with the ability to swivel toward sounds it hears or allow a person watching remote live video to see more.
Outside the home, Ring’s Car Cam can act as a car alarm, and when paired with Car Connect it can show you live video footage from inside your car. It can also respond to a voice command and begin recording if a driver is pulled over by police. And new Alexa Guard features mean each Echo device can listen for specific sounds and respond if it hears a crying baby, barking dog, or sirens.
Finally, the Care Hub was introduced today to give family members a way to remotely monitor their loved ones. There’s also Halo, the fitness tracker introduced earlier this month with a paid service.
Surveillance-as-a-service does not take place in a vacuum. Even before COVID-19, democratic and autocratic governments around the world were increasing their use of surveillance technology.
Reduction in surveillance technology is also a focus of the policy platform Vision for Black Lives , which was recently created by more than 50 Black community organizations.
To assuage people’s privacy concerns, Amazon introduced the “Alexa, delete everything I ever said” command, and Ring plans to roll out end-to-end video encryption.
Amazon isn’t alone in its ambition to peddle surveillance-as-a-service. Last week, Apple made kid tracking a main selling point for its Family Setup feature.
But Amazon products and services introduced today serve as behavioral nudges to get people to speak with Alexa more, rely on Amazon’s recommendation engines , pay ongoing subscription services, and prepare people for ambitious surveillance products that could be on the way.
Such products include outdoor drones for private property surveillance, a service today provided by companies building drone-in-a-box systems for security of a single home or a neighborhood.
In potentially related news, last year Amazon was awarded a surveillance patent that could be used by delivery drones.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"From the ground up: Building your ideal game studio infrastructure (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/19/from-the-ground-up-building-your-ideal-game-studio-infrastructure-vb-live"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Live From the ground up: Building your ideal game studio infrastructure (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Akamai To succeed, a new game studio needs the right tech infrastructure – and a focus on security to avoid the recent increase in attacks. Join this VB Live event and our panel of technical and operational experts for help on the tech and security strategies you need to start strong, scale smart, and more.
Register here for free.
From mobile to console to computer, the game industry is booming like never before. It’s never been a better time to launch a new game studio. The market is ripe, the built-in audience is eager for new content, and innovative new tech, from content delivery systems to the security you need to keep your game safe, is better and more affordable than ever.
Starting a new studio is a tremendous opportunity to get your tech infrastructure right — right from the start. Here’s a look at just some of the issues and challenges you need to keep in mind when you’re building your studio, and your game, from the ground up.
Content distribution A global audience means that seamless digital distribution needs to be among your first priorities. Gamers expect to be able to download regular updates, patches, additional level packs, match information and more as easily and quickly as they downloaded the game initially.
It’s important to put a scalable content delivery network (CDN) in place from the outset. Your vendor should have a large concentration of servers available as close as possible to your targeted end-users. Servers at the edge cache content to user devices in order to circumvent cloud server bandwidth limitations. This is especially important in countries where Internet access is limited, giving broader audiences a way to get to your content.
Dynamic content and microservices To keep gamers engaged over the long term, developers need to offer frequently updated dynamic content. Things like game data, matchmaking multiplayer connectivity, and leaderboards are often bundled together as gaming microservices.
Microservices are API endpoints that are queried hundreds if not thousands of times per second. That means you need to make scalable, reliable API architecture one of your major priorities. When your matchmaking API is unavailable and your players can’t join a match, they’re liable to write your game off.
Because the majority of games today rely on a mix of Internet protocols such as HTTPS and UDP, and these microservices require high scalability as well, it’s also important to use edge servers to scale your core origin infrastructure by offloading logic such as authentication, caching, and redirects for you, ensuring that your APIs don’t get overloaded. Again, players today are impatient, and downtime can make or break a game, especially if it’s new.
Mitigating security threats Security is too often just an afterthought, or an issue to respond to. However, it’s more important than ever to be proactive in your security protection. Security should be embedded in the design phase of your game and your gaming infrastructure, right from the start, because the size and number of security threats are growing quickly.
That’s everything from griefers, who want to disrupt your game by attacking with high-volume attacks against multiplayer servers, to cheaters who manipulate game code or microservices to get ahead, to the fraudsters who steal your gamers’ accounts with targeted takeovers to sell on marketplaces.
Security issues don’t just pose direct financial threats — they also undermine the integrity of your game, the trust of your users, and your long-term success. In a recent study from Akamai and DreamHack, 76% of players said that the gaming company is responsible for the game’s security, and the safety of their accounts.
Security solutions have evolved. Game studios can implement AI-powered digital security platforms on the edge to surround and protect all their assets, including sites, users, devices, data centers, and clouds.
Widely-distributed edge networks of servers deployed as close as possible to your gamers offer the ability to to deliver your content, increase the performance of your microservices, as well as secure your gamers’ accounts, financial information, and in-game items. That means offering protection against high-volumetric attacks such as DNS, TCP, HTTPS attacks with anti-DDoS solutions, and bot and identity management solutions that can offer additional security, and help establish a fair, equal, and safe playground for your gamers.
Establishing well-architected, scalable, and secure gaming infrastructure from the start gives your game the foundation it needs to grow, and to succeed. Player loyalty is among the most important factors in a game studio’s success or failure, and you can earn their trust by establishing a reputation for being reliable, safe, and on their side by offering a fast, always-available, and always safe experience.
Don’t miss out! Registration is free here.
Attendees will learn about: Optimizing Time to Play: removing obstacles from the player experience Basic account security practices: building a more secure player base from day 1 Zero Trust: starting with modern enterprise security practices Speakers: James Dobrowski, Managing Director, Sharkmob Glen Schofield, Chief Executive Officer, Striking Distance Studios Emily Greer, Co-founder & CEO, Double Loop Games Jonathan Singer, Senior Manager – Global Games Industry, Akamai Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, GamesBeat (moderator) More speakers to be announced soon! The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
All rights reserved.
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"11 companies propose guiding principles for self-driving vehicles | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/02/self-driving-car-report-safety-first-for-automated-driving"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages 11 companies propose guiding principles for self-driving vehicles Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Baidu and Hongqi: Level 4 car Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
This morning, a coalition of 11 companies — Aptiv, Audi, Baidu, BMW, Continental, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Here, Infineon, Intel, and Volkswagen — published a whitepaper (“Safety First For Automated Driving”) describing a framework for the development, testing, and validation of “safe” autonomous vehicles. The members claim it’s the broadest representation across the industry to date, and they say that the report — which runs 146 pages — is the largest to offer “clear traceability” proving autonomous vehicles to be “safer than the average driver.” “‘Safety First For Automated Driving’ combines the expertise from key companies in the automaker, supplier, and technology industries to help direct development of safe automated vehicles,” the companies wrote in a jointly issued press release. “With [its] publication, authors and experts from each of the participating partners will present the group’s work at industry and technology conferences internationally over the next several months.” Conspicuously absent from the list of contributors is Alphabet’s Waymo, which recently launched a commercial driverless taxi service that’s now servicing over 1,000 riders with a fleet of more than 600 cars. GM’s Cruise Automation, whose self-driving car prototypes racked up 450,000 autonomous miles in California last year, also opted not to participate. Neither did veritable AV powerhouses like Zoox, Tesla, Amazon-backed Aurora, Beijing-based Pony.ai , Nvidia, or Yandex’s driverless car division.
A coalition spokesperson told VentureBeat that the paper was “equally open” to any party who asked to participate and said that those who signed on did so of their own volition. “Due to the nature and objectives of the Safety First for Automated Driving whitepaper, we welcome additional companies to participate and see this as a living document that will continue to grow,” they added.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Waymo, Cruise, Tesla, and Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The dearth of consensus puts into sharp relief the competitiveness of the global self-driving car market, which HTF Market Intelligence estimates will hit revenue of $173.15 billion by 2023. According to marketing firm ABI, as many as 8 million driverless cars will be added to the road in 2025, and Research and Markets anticipates that there will be some 20 million autonomous cars in operation in the U.S. by 2030.
Ford, Lyft, Uber, Volvo, and Waymo have a coalition of their own — the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets — that launched in April 2016, with the stated goal of “work[ing] with lawmakers, regulators, and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles.” And in what might be perceived as a preemptive shot across the bow, Nvidia yesterday announced that it has been tapped to lead the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA) working group on highly connected automated vehicles, where it says it will examine autonomous vehicle audit assessment, track testing, real-world testing, and simulation.
Self-driving standards There’s nothing overtly objectionable about Safety First For Automated Driving (SaFD) — at least not at first glance. The abstract notes that it’s intended as a summary of “widely known” level 3 and level 4 automated driving, ostensibly with an eye to developing a “generic baseline” that might become an industry-wide standard. (The Society of Automotive Engineers defines level 3 cars as those that can manage driving with only occasional human intervention, and level 4 as vehicles operating safely without oversight in select conditions.) To this end, SaFD advocates 12 guiding principles of automated driving: Safe operation Operational design domain Vehicle operator-initiated handover Security User responsibility Vehicle-initiated handover Interdependency between vehicle operators and automated driving systems (ADS) Safety assessment Data recording Passive safety Behavior in traffic Safe layer The coalition recommends that if safety-related functions or system components become hazardous for any reason, ADS be capable of compensating and transferring the vehicle to a safe state while ensuring sufficient time for drivers to take over. It also prescribes engagement and disengagement mechanisms that require explicit driver interaction, protect against security threats, and recognize a driver’s state in order to keep them informed about their responsibilities and driving mode transitions.
The whitepaper’s coauthors go on to describe maneuvers intended to minimize risk in the event a driver doesn’t comply with a takeover request, along with verification and validation tests intended to ensure that certain safety goals are met. They propose that automated vehicles record data pertaining to status in a privacy-compliant fashion and that they behave predictably in a way that respects road rules and is easy for nearby drivers to understand.
With respect to cybersecurity in ADS, a subject about which two-thirds of Americans expressed concern in a survey conducted by Morning Consult, SaFD recommends Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL), a process for “building in” security tailored to fit product development lifecycles while considering things like risk treatment strategy, system state, and risk treatment manifestation. The coalition also advises that ADS enable localization through sensors, map data, and sensor fusion algorithms so as to prevent autonomous driving in areas where it’s restricted.
SaFD expresses support for the adoption of Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF), a paradigm that seeks to avoid unreasonable risks that might occur even if all of a vehicle’s components are operating correctly, such as when an AI system misidentifies a traffic sign or road signal. This is currently being developed by the International Organization for Standardization, and the coalition believes it will reduce known potential behaviors and unknown potential behaviors to “an acceptable level of … risk.” Another way risk might be reduced, the coalition believes, is by ensuring that vehicles’ perception sensors — including cameras, lidar, radar, ultrasonic, and microphones — capture “all relevant external information” about surroundings, including pedestrians, obstacles, traffic signs, and acoustic signals. The group also suggests validating simulations — the digital environments employed by companies like Waymo, Uber, and Cruise to recreate tens of thousands of driving scenarios each day — by testing a subset of corner cases against real-world experience.
The strategies, taken as a whole, are in service to what SaFD defines as “safety by design,” an analytical engineering approach that begins with “scenario-based” automated driving technologies and ends with analyses of the systems’ performance in the real world. “To achieve the balance between fail-safe and availability, the design is analyzed and built from the top down,” write the paper’s coauthors. “The first analysis is carried out irrespective of the generic logical architecture … Ultimately, this evolves into a safety concept, defining safety mechanisms to support … safety goals.” According to the SaFD, level 3 and level 4 vehicles face formidable challenges no matter how carefully they’re designed, chief among them “statistically” demonstrating safety and “positive risk balance” without a human driver ready to take the wheel. The coalition notes that they’ll also have to pass tests involving driver interaction — i.e., situations where drivers are forced to take control — and prove that they’re capable of coping with “scenarios not currently known” in traffic. Moreover, each component within automated systems that come in a range of configurations will need to be fully verified, SaFD says, and the core parts reliant on machine learning will have to be tested with “new validation methods” adapted to ensure the safety of the entire system.
“Long-term effects of prolonged use of an automated driving system may also desensitize the situational awareness of the driver,” write the coauthors. “[T]hese systems require a much more thorough consideration of the automated driving system’s ability to safely perform the driving function itself. This greatly increases the number of possible scenarios and implies the need to include statistical considerations in the overall safety argumentation.” The coalition cautions that the whitepaper isn’t meant as a one-off but as a “first version” and says that the next version will be put forward as a proposal for international standardization. Only time will tell if that will be enough to convince a skeptical public.
Three separate studies last summer — by the Brookings Institution , think tank HNTB, and the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (AHAS) — found that a majority of people aren’t convinced of driverless cars’ safety. More than 60% said they were “not inclined” to ride in self-driving cars, almost 70% expressed “concerns” about sharing the road with them, and 59% expected that self-driving cars will be “no safer” than human-controlled cars.
These concerns are not without reason. In March 2018, Uber suspended testing of its autonomous Volvo XC90 fleet after one of its cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. Separately, Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system has been blamed for a number of fender benders, including one in which a Tesla Model S collided with a parked Culver City fire truck. (Tesla temporarily stopped offering “full self-driving capability” on select new models in early October 2018.) The Rand Corporation estimates that autonomous cars will have to rack up 11 billion miles before we’ll have reliable statistics on their safety — far more than the roughly 2 million miles the dozens of companies testing self-driving cars in California logged last year.
“There will still be some residual risks,” SaFD concedes, adding that it’s impossible to guarantee absolute safety with “100%” confidence. “Field monitoring is obligatory in order to iteratively learn and improve the systems,” the report concludes.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,089 | 2,019 |
"California DMV releases autonomous vehicle disengagement reports for 2019 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/26/california-dmv-releases-latest-batch-of-autonomous-vehicle-disengagement-reports"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages California DMV releases autonomous vehicle disengagement reports for 2019 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A self-driving vehicle developed by Google parent company Alphabet's Waymo.
Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
This morning the California Department of Motor Vehicles released a batch of 2019 reports from the companies piloting self-driving vehicles in the state. By law, all companies actively testing autonomous cars on public roads in California are required to disclose the number of miles driven and how often human drivers were forced to take control of their vehicles, otherwise known as a “disengagement.” Formally, the DMV defines disengagements as “deactivation of the autonomous mode when a failure of the autonomous technology is detected or when the safe operation of the vehicle requires that the autonomous vehicle test driver disengage the autonomous mode and take immediate manual control of the vehicle.” Critics say it leaves wiggle room for companies to withhold information about certain failures, like vehicles running red lights in order to avoid hitting pedestrians about to cross the street. But in lieu of federal rules, the reports offer one of the few metrics for comparing the industry’s pack leaders.
According to the DMV , AV permit holders — of which there are 60 — traveled approximately 2.88 million miles in autonomous mode on California’s public roads during the reporting period, an increase of more than 800,000 miles from the previous reporting cycle. Currently, 64 companies have valid permits to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver on California public roadways, up from 48 companies in 2018. It’s worth noting that only five companies — Aurora, AutoX, Pony.ai, Waymo, and Zoox — have permits under the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to transport passengers in autonomous vehicles, with Zoox receiving the first one in December 2018.
Waymo Waymo’s 153 cars and 268 drivers covered 1.45 million miles in California in 2019, eclipsing the company’s 1.2 million miles in 2018, 352,000 miles in 2017, and 635,868 miles in 2016. Indeed, it was a year of mileage milestones for the Alphabet subsidiary, which passed 1,500 monthly active riders in Phoenix, Arizona — the only state of the nine in which Waymo has driven where its commercial taxi service, Waymo One, is available. Waymo announced earlier this year that its autonomous Chrysler Pacificas and Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs have driven tens of billions of miles through computer simulations and 20 million miles on public roads in 25 cities (up from 10 million a year ago).
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The company’s disengagement rates dropped from 0.09 per 1,000 self-driven miles (or one per 11,017 miles) to 0.076 per 1,000 self-driven miles (one per 13,219 miles).
The improvements are perhaps partly attributable to Waymo’s AI data mining techniques inspired by Google Photos and Google Search, as well as the company’s ongoing collaboration with Alphabet’s DeepMind on AI techniques inspired by evolutionary biology. DeepMind’s PBT (Population Based Training), which starts with multiple machine learning models and replaces underperforming members with “offspring,” managed to reduce false positives by 24% in pedestrian, bicyclist, and motorcyclist recognition tasks while cutting training time and computational resources in half.
Separately, Waymo says that it’s currently developing its fifth-generation Waymo Driver in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and that it runs disengagements through its simulation program. Later this year, it plans to share more on the safety framework it’s developing.
Waymo hasn’t shared the number of customers who’ve ridden in its fleet of over 600 vehicles to date, but it said last December that over 1,500 people are using its ride-hailing service monthly and that it has tripled the number of weekly rides since January 2019. Additionally, it revealed that it has served over 100,000 total rides since launching its rider programs in 2017, and shortly after announcing a partnership with Lyft to deploy 10 cars on the ride-hailing platform in Phoenix, it reiterated that a portion of its self-driving taxis no longer have a safety driver behind the wheel. Completely driverless rides remain available only to a “few hundred” riders in Waymo’s Early Rider program, the company says.
In a move that laid bare Waymo’s ambitions for the lucrative freight transportation industry, the company recently announced it will begin testing Peterbilt trucks retrofitted with its tech stack on “promising” commercial routes in Texas, New Mexico, the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and on Metro Phoenix freeways (as well as on the I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson). This came after Waymo began mapping the streets of Los Angeles to study congestion and expanded testing to highways in Florida between Orlando, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Miami.
GM Cruise Cruise Automation, the GM subsidiary that’s estimated to be worth over $14.6 billion, reported a significant uptick in miles driven. Its retrofitted Chevy Bolts racked up 831,040 miles in 2019, up from 447,621 miles in 2018, 131,676 miles in 2017, and 9,776 miles in 2016.
Cruise recorded disengagements for the first half of 2019 separate from those recorded in the second half of 2019, reflecting what it says was a combination of upgrades and revamped testing procedures that drastically cut down on disengagements per mile. In the first half of 2019, Cruise reported 43 disengagements (or 7,635 miles per disengagement) in 328,285 total miles driven. In the second half of 2019, it logged 25 disengagements (or 20,110 miles per disengagement) in 502,755 miles. That works out to 68 total disengagements in 2019, versus 86 disengagements in 2018 (once every 5,205 miles) and 105 disengagements in 2017.
For a frame of reference, that’s across the roughly 233 self-driving vehicles Cruise was operating in California as of early 2019, up from 130 in June 2017.
Cruise CEO Dan Ammann recently offered a glimpse into the progress the company has made toward a fully self-driving vehicle fleet. During GM’s investor day conference in New York, he revealed that Cruise has reduced the amount of time between software updates while cutting the time it takes to train its AI models by 80%. Major new firmware rolls out up to 45 times more frequently than before, and as often as twice weekly.
Cruise runs lots of simulations across its suite of internal tools — about 200,000 hours of compute jobs each day in Google Cloud Platform as of April 2019 — one of which is an end-to-end, three-dimensional Unreal Engine environment that Cruise employees call The Matrix. Over 30,000 instances spin up daily across 300,000 processor cores and 5,000 graphics cards, each of which loops through a single drive’s worth of scenarios and generates 300 terabytes of results.
Cruise operates an employees-only ride-hailing program in San Francisco called Cruise Anywhere that allows those who make it past the waitlist to use an app to get around mapped areas. Separately, building on the progress it has made so far, Cruise has a partnership with DoorDash to pilot food and grocery deliveries in the Bay Area for select customers. The company also continues to make progress toward its Origin vehicle concept , which features automatic doors, rear seat airbags, and other redundant systems and lacks a steering wheel.
Apple Apple’s ongoing self-driving effort — code-named Project Titan — made incremental regress in 2019, this year’s report shows. Compared with 2018, a year in which Apple’s roughly 52 autonomous vehicles covered 79,745 miles, its 66 cars drove only 7,544 miles in total.
The company’s cars experienced 64 disengagements in 2019, versus last year’s 871.65 disengagements per 1,000 miles with a disengagement approximately every 1.1 mile.
It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Project Titan, which reportedly kicked off as early as 2014. Apple was only permitted to test autonomous vehicles on California roads in 2017, lagging behind rivals like Waymo. And proposed technical collaborations with BMW and Mercedes-Benz failed, as did potential alliances with Nissan, BYD Auto, McClaren, and others.
Eventually, Apple found a partner in Volkswagen, and the two produced an autonomous employee shuttle van based on the automaker’s T6 Transporter commercial platform. But in 2018, Project Titan suffered a blow when a former Apple employee was arrested by the FBI for allegedly stealing trade secrets. In 2019, it suffered another when Apple cut the staff of roughly 5,000 employees by 200, shifting some to machine learning projects.
Shortly afterward, Doug Field, former senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, was tapped to lead the Titan team, and Apple later acquired self-driving startup Drive.ai.
Uber Uber didn’t report much in the way of progress regarding miles or disengagements in California for 2019, after reporting 2,608 disengagements per 1,000 miles (or 0.4 miles per disengagement) in 2018. In May 2018, the company announced it wouldn’t renew its permit to test self-driving vehicles in California, citing caution in the wake of a fatal accident involving one of its autonomous cars in Arizona.
Above: An autonomous Uber in San Francisco That’s all likely to change next year. In a bid to close the gap with rivals — including GM’s Cruise Automation and Alphabet’s Waymo — Uber reapplied for a permit, which was granted earlier this month. It cautioned at the time that it didn’t have immediate plans to engage in autonomous driving, although it’s eyeing San Francisco as a potential site. Instead, Uber will kick off driving with trained drivers behind the wheel and notify local, state, and federal stakeholders prior to launching driverless tests.
In an S-1 filing ahead of its initial public offering last year, Uber noted that its Advanced Technologies Group — the division responsible for its autonomous transportation projects — has grown from a team of 40 Pittsburgh-based researchers in 2015 to a 1,000-person workforce spread across offices in San Francisco and elsewhere. Furthermore, Uber said it has collected data from “millions” of autonomous vehicle testing miles to date and completed “tens of thousands” of passenger trips to date. And it’s gathering map data in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Dallas, and Toronto.
Lyft Lyft’s 20 driverless cars racked up 42,930 miles in 2019 and experienced 1,667 disengagements under the supervision of the company’s Level 5 team — a relatively high number compared with many of its rivals.
The Level 5 team is a group of data scientists, applied researchers, product managers, operations managers, and others working to build a self-driving system for ride-sharing. Since the division was founded in July 2017, the group has developed novel 3D segmentation frameworks, new methods of evaluating energy efficiency in vehicles, and techniques for tracking vehicle movement using crowdsourced maps.
Earlier this year, Lyft announced the opening of a new road test site in Palo Alto, California, near its Level 5 division’s headquarters. At the new center, engineers will mimic real-world driving scenarios involving intersections, traffic lights, roadway merges, pedestrian pathways, and other public road conditions, components of which will be reconfigurable.
Above: A diagram of Lyft’s autonomous car decision-making model.
The development came after a year in which Lyft expanded access to its employee self-driving service in Palo Alto (where it has secured permission from city officials) with human safety drivers on board in a limited area. The company says in 2019 it increased the available routes “threefold” and that it plans to grow the regions covered “rapidly.” In November, Lyft revealed that it’s now driving 4 times more miles on a quarterly basis than it was six months ago and that it has about 400 employees dedicated to autonomous vehicle technology development globally (up from 300 previously). According to the company, 96% of people who try hailing a driverless vehicle in the Lyft app say they want to do so again.
In May, Lyft partnered with Google parent company Alphabet’s Waymo to enable customers to hail driverless Waymo cars from the Lyft app in Phoenix, and Lyft has an ongoing collaboration with self-driving car startup Aptiv, which makes a small fleet of autonomous vehicles available to Lyft customers in Las Vegas. More recently, Lyft released an open source data set for autonomous vehicle development it said was one of the largest of its kind, with over 55,000 human-labeled 3D annotated frames of traffic agents.
Aurora Aurora , which last year raised investments from Amazon and others totaling $600 million at a valuation of over $2 billion, reported that its lidar sensor-, radar-, and camera-equipped Lincoln MKZs (which might be swapped out for Chrysler Pacific minivans in the next year) drove 39,729 miles (26,300 manually) and disengaged 10.6 times per 1,000 miles in 2019. (Aurora blames 25% of the 142 reportable disengagements on a software issue that was fixed early in the year.) That record is compared with 11.5 disengagements per 1,000 miles in 2018.
Auora says that after a year of focusing on capabilities such as merging, nudging, and unprotected left-hand turns, its autonomous system — the Aurora Driver, which has been integrated into six different types of vehicles to date, including sedans, SUVs, minivans, commercial vans, and Class 8 freight trucks — can perform each seamlessly “even in dense urban environments.” As it expands its vehicle fleets for data collection, testing, and validation this year, it plans to improve how the Aurora Driver predicts and accounts for “non-compliant actors,” or people who aren’t following the rules of the road, like jaywalkers and drivers who aggressively cut into the lane.
Aurora has prioritized investment in its Virtual Testing Suite, which allows it to run millions of off-road tests a day and feed driving decisions into motion-planning models, allowing them to learn from experience. Thanks to the Virtual Testing Suite, Aurora can model tests involving pedestrians, lane merging, and parked cars. CEO Chris Urmson estimates that a single virtual mile can be just as insightful as 1,000 miles collected on the open road and says that in 2019, virtual testing grew to over 735,000 tests per day, an increase of over 100 times from 2018.
Aurora says that in a typical mile of driving in 2019, its vehicles encountered approximately 3 times more cars on the road and nearly 10 times more pedestrians compared with 2018. Plus, it says the Aurora Driver improved in its ability to nudge (i.e., move around stagnant objects, like double-parked vehicles); navigate pedestrians, crosswalks, and traffic lights; make right-on-red turns onto roads with speed limits no greater than 25 miles per hour; make unprotected left turns that do not involve multiple lanes; conduct lane changes; negotiate merges; and share the road with cyclists, where it slows its speed behind them or merges with them if appropriate.
On the virtual testing side of the equation, the company claims that the Aurora Driver completed 2.27 million unprotected left turns in simulation before attempting to perform one on the road (in September 2019). That number now stands at 31.28 million in simulation.
Nuro Driverless delivery startup Nuro reported 68,762 total miles driven and 34 disengagements (2,022 miles per disengagement) in 2019, versus 0.97 disengagements per mile (1,028 miles per disengagement) in 2018. It listed 33 vehicles as having collected autonomous miles in California, though it noted that this isn’t the entirety of its fleet.
Nuro was cofounded in 2016 by Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, both veterans of the secretive Google self-driving car project that eventually spun out as Waymo. The Mountain View, California-based company has about 400 employees and 100 contract workers and has so far deployed over 75 delivery vehicles, and it plans to test 50 vehicles on roads in California, Arizona, and Texas in the coming months, with safety drivers behind the wheel.
In a step toward that goal, the company last week announced that its R2 vehicles had been granted an autonomous vehicle exemption by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The R2 features a more durable body that’s able to handle a greater variety of roads, climates, and weather conditions than the outgoing R1. Its smooth and rounded cabin, which has contours where side mirrors would otherwise be placed, is designed to create room for bicyclists and other “vulnerable” road users while improving lateral maneuverability.
The R2 will soon join a fleet of self-driving Prius vehicles in Houston, Texas, making deliveries to consumers on public roads from partners including Domino’s, Walmart , and Kroger. Under the terms of the exemption, Nuro will be permitted to produce and deploy no more than 5,000 R2 vehicles during a two-year period, and it will have to report information about the R2’s operation (including the automated driving system) and conduct outreach in communities where it will deliver goods.
Pony.ai Pony.ai reported that its 22 cars drove 174,845 miles and experienced 27 disengagements in 2019 (6,476 miles per disengagement). In 2018, it said that its cars disengaged 0.98 times per 1,000 miles, or once every 1,022 miles.
The Fremont, California-based startup, which was founded in 2016 by former Baidu chief architect James Peng and Google X veteran Tiancheng Lou, recently concluded a multi-month pilot robo-taxi service in Irvine, California — dubbed BotRide — in partnership with Hyundai (which provided ONA Electric SUVs) and Via (which supplied the passenger booking and assignment logistics). This followed an April test of Pony.ai’s “product-ready” driverless cars in Nansha, China and was one of the first robo-taxi services to be made available in California.
Pony.ai is also collaborating with Toyota to explore “safe” mobility services involving driverless technology across a range of segments and industries. The two companies plan to kick off a pilot program on public Beijing and Shanghai roads to “accelerate the development and deployment” of autonomous vehicles, using Lexus RX vehicles and Pony.ai’s driving system.
Above: A Hyundai KONA Electric SUV outfitted with Pony,ai’s autonomous navigation tech.
Pony.ai’s full-stack hardware platform, PonyAlpha, leverages lidars, radars, and cameras to keep tabs on obstacles up to 200 meters from its self-driving cars. This platform serves as the foundation for the company’s fully autonomous trucks and freight delivery solution, which commenced testing on public roads in April, and it is deployed in test cars within the city limits of Fremont, California and Beijing (in addition to Guangzhou).
Baidu Tech giant Baidu’s four autonomous cars in California drove 108,300 miles and saw six disengagements in 2019 (a disengagement rate of 0.055 per 1,000 self-driven miles), versus 4.86 disengagements per 1,000 (205 miles per disengagement) the year before. To date, Baidu’s fleet has traversed more than 1.8 million combined miles during tests in 23 Chinese cities, up from roughly 1.2 million miles across 13 cities as of July 2019.
Baidu is slowly but surely progressing toward the launch of a commercial robot-taxi fleet in mainland China. In December, the company announced that it had secured 40 licenses to test driverless cars carrying passengers on designated roads in Beijing, making it one of the first to do so in the Chinese capital. In related news, Baidu inked a strategic partnership with Geely to equip the Hangzhou, China-based automaker’s cars with DuerOS for Apollo, a set of AI-based IoV solutions with voice assistant, augmented reality, and motion detection capabilities.
Above: Baidu and Hongqi: Level 4 car Baidu is also collaborating with Chinese state-owned car company FAW Group , which develops the Hongqi line of luxury cars, to deploy driverless vehicles in the Hunan capital of Changsha within the next few months. Other automotive partners include Ford, which it embarked on a two-year project to test self-driving vehicles on Chinese roads with.
Baidu separately inked a deal with Volvo to develop autonomous electric cars specifically for the Chinese market. In 2017, it launched a $1.52 billion driving fund — the Apollo Fund — as part of a wider plan to invest in 100 autonomous driving projects over the next three years. Perhaps not coincidentally, Changsha will serve as the pilot site for Apollo Go, Baidu’s ongoing robo-taxi project.
Zoox The 58 vehicles registered to Zoox , the secretive self-driving car startup headed by former Intel chief strategy officer Aicha Evans, drove 67,015 autonomous miles and recorded 42 disengagements in 2019. That’s compared with 0.52 disengagements per 1,000 miles (or 1,922 miles per disengagement) in 2018.
Like other self-driving vehicles, Zoox’s cars — which have four-wheel steering, dual power train, and dual batteries — use machine learning algorithms to contend with environments they’ve never seen before, like construction zones. They take in visual data and chart new courses around obstructions and obstacles, all without the need for human intervention.
Zoox is testing the bulk of its vehicles in San Francisco (and a few in Las Vegas), like Cruise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the company is using data collected from the real world to inform simulations that continuously improve its systems’ performance. Its cars drive city blocks to create topologies, and its engineers use these topologies to create three-dimensional representations that AI agents travel endlessly in order to self-improve.
Tesla Tesla reported a measly 12.2 miles driven autonomously on public roads in California during all of 2019. But the company says it conducts its testing via simulation, in laboratories, on test tracks, and on public roads in various locations around the world, and that it “shadow-tests” its cars’ autonomous capabilities by collecting anonymized data from over 400,000 customer-owned vehicles “during normal driving operations.” Telsa’s Autopilot — the software layer running atop its custom chips — is effectively an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) that taps machine learning algorithms and an array of cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and radars to perform self-parking, lane-centering, adaptive cruise control, highway lane-changing, and other feats. The company previously announced that cars with Full Self-Driving Capability, a premium Autopilot package, will someday be ready for “automatic driving on city streets” and to “recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.” In its most recent voluntary safety report covering Q4 2019, Tesla said it registered one accident for every 3.07 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged.
According to a model developed by MIT researcher Lex Fridman, Tesla’s cars are estimated to have driven nearly 2 billion miles in autonomous mode, Disengagements Whether the disengagement metrics communicate anything meaningful remains the subject of ongoing debate.
Aurora, for one, has noted that disengagement numbers don’t adequately capture improvements or their impact over time. That’s why the company records two types internally: reactionary disengagements, where a vehicle operator disengages the system because they believe an unsafe situation might occur, and policy disengagements, where an operator proactively disengages ahead of an on-road situation the system hasn’t been taught to handle.
Aurora’s Urmson claims that technical or engineering velocity is a superior measure of progress because it captures advancements made on core technology. “Historically, the industry and media have turned to tallying on-road miles and calculating disengagement rates as measurements of progress,” he wrote in a Medium post. “If we drive 100 million miles in a flat, dry area where there are no other vehicles or people, and few intersections, is our ‘disengagement rate’ really comparable to driving 100 miles in a busy and complex city like Pittsburgh.” In a blog post earlier this year, Kyle Vogt, cofounder and CTO of Cruise , posited that it might be time for a new metric for reporting safety of self-driving cars. “Keep in mind that driving on a well-marked highway or wide, suburban roads is not the same as driving in a chaotic urban environment,” Vogt wrote.
“The difference in skill required is just like skiing on green slopes versus double black diamonds.” Vogt and Urmson aren’t the only ones who have voiced disapproval of disengagement-based safety measures.
San Francisco-based self-driving truck startup Embark, which last year released a voluntary disengagement report, declined to disclose those numbers in favor of a new system of metrics “that [capture] the different scenarios” its system encounters. (Despite this, it revealed that in 2019 it tested 449,837 automated miles with 0 crashes.) “Within the company, we have migrated away from using disengagement rate as a performance metric, and to remain consistent with our internal thinking, we have decided not to release a 2019 disengagement report,” wrote Embark CEO Alex Rodrigues in a Medium post.
Apple has called on the DMV to “amend or clarify” its position on disengagement and testing without safety drivers. And in a blog post this month, Waymo wrote that “the key to self-driving technology safely improving and scaling is through a robust breadth of experience and scenario testing, represented by a wider array of data points beyond disengagement alone.” “We appreciate what the California DMV was trying to do when creating this requirement, but the disengagement metric does not provide relevant insights into the capabilities of the Waymo Driver or distinguish its performance from others in the self-driving space,” wrote Waymo in a series of tweets today. “While most of the development, learning, and validation of the Waymo Driver comes through billions of miles driven within our simulation environments, our real-world driving experience is primarily outside of California, in markets like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Most of our large-scale real-world driving, which is critical for full-system validation (including validating the realism of our simulator) comes from Phoenix.” Nuro’s Zhu said in a statement that the metrics for miles driven and miles driven per disengagement are “not a comprehensive measure” for technological success, business maturity, or safety. “We view the autonomous vehicle disengagement reports as an opportunity to amplify the comprehensive safety strategies used by Nuro to develop our autonomous technology,” he continued. “We also continue our engagement with regulators on how our unique vehicle design and operation prioritizes the safety of others with whom we share the roads.” In a conversation with VentureBeat, Dmitry Polishchuk, the head of Russian tech giant Yandex’s autonomous car project, noted that Yandex hasn’t released a disengagement report to date for this reason. “We have kind of been waiting for some sort of industry standard,” he said. “Self-driving companies aren’t following the exact same protocols for things. [For example, there might be a] disengagement because there’s something blocking the right lane or a car in the right lane, and [the safety driver realizes] as a human that [this object or car] isn’t going to move.” Stalled regulation and skepticism Unfortunately for companies like Yandex, Cruise, and Aurora, autonomous car companies can likely expect less regulatory guidance, at least in the U.S. At CES on January 8, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced Automated Vehicles 4.0 (AV 4.0), new guidelines regarding self-driving cars that seek to promote “voluntary consensus standards” among autonomous vehicle developers. The guidelines request but don’t mandate regular assessments of self-driving vehicle safety, and they permit those assessments to be completed by automakers themselves, as opposed to by a standards body.
Advocacy groups — including the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety — almost immediately criticized the policy for its vagueness. “Without strong leadership and regulations … [autonomous vehicle] manufacturers can and will continue to introduce extremely complex supercomputers-on-wheels onto public roads … with meager government oversight,” Advocates president Cathy Chase said in a statement. “Voluntary guidelines are completely unenforceable, will not result in adequate performance standards, and fall well short of the safeguards that are necessary to protect the public.” In the U.S., legislation remains stalled at the federal level. More than a year ago, the House unanimously passed the SELF DRIVE Act, which would create a regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles. But it has yet to be taken up by the Senate, which in 2018 tabled a separate bill, the AV START Act, that made its way through committee in November 2017.
There’s evidence to suggest the standstill is contributing to public fears about self-driving cars. J.D. Power’s inaugural 2019 Mobility Confidence Index Study found that a majority of respondents harbor doubts about the technology’s robustness, with 71% saying that they’re worried about driverless system failures or errors and 57% saying they fear malicious vehicle hacks. This was roughly in line with results from a PSB Research survey commissioned by Intel last year, which indicated that nearly half (43%) of people don’t feel safe around driverless vehicles, and a recent CarGuru survey of 1,146 automobile owners that found that 87% wouldn’t rely on autonomous cars given the choice.
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"U.S. will unveil data-sharing platform for autonomous vehicle testing | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/u-s-will-unveil-data-sharing-platform-for-autonomous-vehicle-testing"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages U.S. will unveil data-sharing platform for autonomous vehicle testing Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Waymo Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
( Reuters ) — On Monday, U.S. auto safety regulators will unveil a voluntary effort to collect and make available nationwide data on existing autonomous vehicle testing.
U.S. states have a variety of regulations governing self-driving testing and data disclosure, and there is currently no centralized listing of all automated vehicle testing.
California, for example, requires public disclosure of all crashes involving self-driving vehicles, while other states do not.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is unveiling the Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing (AV TEST) initiative to provide “an online, public-facing platform for sharing automated driving system on-road testing activities.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! With many opinion polls showing deep skepticism about self-driving cars in the U.S., the effort aims to boost public awareness. NHTSA plans “online mapping tools” that will eventually show testing locations and activity data.
NHTSA deputy administrator James Owens said in an interview that providing better transparency “encourages everybody to up their game to help better ensure that the testing is done in a manner fully consistent with safety.” Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Uber, Alphabet’s self-driving company Waymo , and Cruise — General Motors’ majority-owned self-driving subsidiary — are expected to take part. Participating states include California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, officials said.
NHTSA’s goal is to “pull together really critical stakeholders to deepen the lines of communication and cooperation among all of us,” Owens said, adding the effort was “an opportunity for the states to start sharing information among themselves.” NHTSA will hold events this week to kick off the initiative, including panels featuring companies involved in autonomous vehicle testing, such as Nuro, Beep, Waymo, Uber, and Toyota.
Critics say NHTSA should mandate federal safety standards for automated driving systems.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in its investigation of the March 2018 death of a pedestrian in a crash with an Uber test vehicle — the first attributed to a self-driving car — said in November that NHTSA should make self-driving vehicle safety assessments mandatory and ensure automated vehicles have appropriate safeguards.
Owens said NHTSA “will not hesitate” to take action if it believes unsafe vehicles are being tested on U.S. roads, but it has not adopted NTSB’s recommendations.
( Reporting by David Shepardson, editing by Peter Cooney.
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"Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/30/waymo-expanding-autonomous-truck-testing-in-american-southwest"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Today during a briefing with members of the media, Waymo head of commercialization for trucking Charlie Jatt outlined the company’s go-to-market plans for Waymo Via , its self-driving delivery division. In the future, Waymo will partner with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to equip cloud-based trucks manufactured and sold to the market with its autonomous systems. In addition, Waymo will work with fleets to provide its software services and offer support for things like mapping and remote fleet assistance.
As Waymo transitions to this model, Jatt said that Waymo intends to own and offer its own fleet of trucks — at least in the short term. One of the delivery solutions it’s exploring is a transfer-hub model where, rather than an automated truck covering an entire journey, there will be a mix of an automated portion and a portion involving manually driven, human-manned trucks. Automated vehicle transfer hubs close to highways would handle the switch-off and minimize surface street driving.
In a first step toward this vision, Waymo says it will soon expand testing on roads in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas along the I-10 corridor between Phoenix and Tuscon, as previously announced.
This year Waymo mapped routes between Phoenix, El Paso, Dallas, and Houston and ramped up testing in California on freeways in Mountain View, but the focus for the rest of 2020 will be on the American Southwest.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Tests will be primarily along Interstates 10, 20, and 45 and through metropolitan areas like El Paso, Dallas, and Houston. Chrysler Pacifica vans retrofitted with Waymo’s technology stack will map roads ahead of driverless Peterbilt trucks as part of a project known as Husky.
Waymo is also engaged with local delivery under the Waymo Via umbrella, the company reiterated. It currently has two partnerships in the Phoenix area — one with AutoNation and one with UPS. On the AutoNation side, Waymo is performing “hot shot” deliveries where Waymo vehicles travel to certain AutoNation locations and deliver car parts. And on the UPS side, the company is ferrying packages from stores to UPS sorting centers.
Waymo began piloting dedicated goods delivery with class A trucks — 18-wheelers — in 2017. After completing tests in 2018 with real loads from Google datacenters in Atlanta, Waymo began limited testing on roads in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia, and on Metro Phoenix freeways.
Waymo’s autonomous trucks employ a combination of lidars, radars, and cameras to understand the world around them. They have roughly twice as many sensors as Waymo’s cars to handle the trucks’ unique shape and the occlusions they cause, and they place a greater emphasis on long-length perception (the perception range is somewhere beyond 300 meters). But they use the same compute platform found in the fifth-generation Waymo Driver.
As the pandemic drives unprecedented growth in the logistics and ground transportation market, Aurora , TuSimple, and other rivals are investing increased resources in fully autonomous solutions. They stand to save the logistics and shipping industry $70 billion annually while boosting productivity by 30%; according to a recent study from the Consumer Technology Association, a quarter (26%) of consumers now view autonomous delivery technologies more favorably than before the health crisis.
Besides cost savings, the growth in autonomous trucking has been driven in part by a shortage of human drivers. In 2018, the American Trucking Associates estimated that 50,000 more truckers were needed to close the gap in the U.S., even despite the sidelining of proposed U.S. Transportation Department screenings for sleep apnea.
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"AI researchers devise failure detection method for safety-critical machine learning | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/15/ai-researchers-devise-failure-detection-method-for-safety-critical-machine-learning"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI researchers devise failure detection method for safety-critical machine learning Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Researchers from MIT, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania have devised a method for predicting failure rates of safety-critical machine learning systems and efficiently determining their rate of occurrence. Safety-critical machine learning systems make decisions for automated technology like self-driving cars, robotic surgery, pacemakers, and autonomous flight systems for helicopters and planes. Unlike AI that helps you write an email or recommends a song, safety-critical system failures can result in serious injury or death. Problems with such machine learning systems can also cause financially costly events like SpaceX missing its landing pad.
Researchers say their neural bridge sampling method gives regulators, academics, and industry experts a common reference for discussing the risks associated with deploying complex machine learning systems in safety-critical environments. In a paper titled “Neural Bridge Sampling for Evaluating Safety-Critical Autonomous Systems,” recently published on arXiv , the authors assert their approach can satisfy both the public’s right to know that a system has been rigorously tested and an organization’s desire to treat AI models like trade secrets. In fact, some AI startups and Big Tech companies refuse to grant access to raw models for testing and verification out of fear that such inspections could reveal proprietary information.
“They don’t want to tell you what’s inside the black box, so we need to be able to look at these systems from afar without sort of dissecting them,” co-lead author Matthew O’Kelly told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “And so one of the benefits of the methods that we’re proposing is that essentially somebody can send you a scrambled description of that generated model, give you a bunch of distributions, and you draw from them, then send back the search space and the scores. They don’t tell you what actually happened during the rollout.” Safety-critical systems have failure rates so low that the rates can be tough to compute, and the better the systems get, the harder it is to estimate, O’Kelly said. To come up with a predicted failure rate, a novel Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) scheme is used to identify areas in a distribution believed to be in proximity to a failure event.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Then you continue this process and you build what we call this ladder toward the failure regions. You keep getting worse and worse and worse as you play against the Tesla autopilot algorithm or the pacemaker algorithm to keep pushing it toward the failures that are worse and worse,” said co-lead author Aman Sinha.
The neural bridge sampling method detailed in the paper draws on decades-old statistical techniques, as well as recent work published in part by O’Kelly and Sinha that uses a simulation testing framework to evaluate a black box autonomous vehicle system. In addition to the neural bridge contribution in the paper, the authors argue in favor of continued advances in privacy-conscious tech like federated learning and differential privacy and urge more researchers and people with technical knowledge to join regulatory conversations and help drive policy.
“We would like to see more statistics-driven, science-driven initiatives, in terms of regulation and policy around things like self-driving vehicles,” O’Kelly said. “We think that it’s just such a novel technology that information is going to need to flow pretty rapidly from the academic community to the businesses making the objects to the government that’s going to be responsible for regulating them.” In other recent safety-critical systems news, autonomous shipping has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic , and last week a team of researchers detailed DuckieNet , a physical model for evaluating autonomous vehicle and robotics systems. Also last week: Medical experts introduced the first set of standards for reporting artificial intelligence use in medical clinical trials.
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"Twitter Q3 2019 revenue jumps 9% to $824 million, ‘monetizable daily users’ grow 17% to 145 million | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/24/twitter-q3-2019-revenue-jumps-9-to-824-million-monetizable-daily-users-grow-17-to-145-million"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Twitter Q3 2019 revenue jumps 9% to $824 million, ‘monetizable daily users’ grow 17% to 145 million Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Twitter's profile page on Twitter.com Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Twitter has announced Q3 2019 revenues of $824 million — a year-on-year (YoY) increase of around 9% on the $758 million the social network reported for the same period last year, but down around 2% from the $841 million for the previous quarter.
The company reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.17, compared to the expected $0.20.
During its last earnings announcement, Twitter reported higher-than-usual domestic growth, with its U.S. revenue climbing 24%, compared to 12% for its international income. This time around, Twitter’s U.S. revenue increased by a more modest 10% versus the 7% for its non-U.S. income.
In terms of user growth, this was the second quarter in which the San Francisco-based social network didn’t report monthly active users (MAUs), instead focusing on what it calls “monetizable daily active users” (mDAUs), which jumped to 145 million — up 17% from the 124 million from the same period last year, and marginally up on the previous quarter’s 139 million. Twitter defines mDAUs as those who log in through Twitter.com or its mobile apps and are able to view advertisements, so this excludes TweetDeck or third-party clients.
Missed expectations During the previous quarter’s earnings, Twitter estimated that its Q3 revenue would fall somewhere between $815 million and $875 million, and in the build-up to today’s announcement the consensus estimate had the figure pegged at the top end of that scale, so today’s news won’t be welcomed by Wall Street. Twitter shares had seen something of a resurgence in recent times, hitting a 12-month high of $45 last month, its second-highest peak since 2015. However, in the wake of today’s missed revenue target, the company’s shares dropped more than 20% in premarket trading.
Twitter explained that part of its revenue miss was due to a bug it found in its legacy Mobile App Promotion ( MAP ) product, an ad tool that allows developers to promote their apps through Twitter. The company said this bug impacted its ability to target ads and share data with its ad partners. Additionally, it said that certain “personalization and data settings” were not working properly. Twitter estimated that these issues together affected its YoY revenue growth by at least 3 percentage points.
Twitter has made a number of tweaks to its platform over the past quarter, including a controversial “hide replies” feature that allows tweet authors to curate responses to their tweets. This feeds into a broader push from Twitter and other social networks looking to clean up their platforms and make them less toxic — in theory, this should encourage more people to use their services. And this is what Twitter is looking to highlight in its Q3 report: Short-term revenue misses aren’t as important as building an app that people want to use long into the future.
“Despite its challenges, this quarter validates our strategy of investing to drive long-term growth,” said Twitter CFO Ned Segal. “More work remains to deliver improved revenue products. We’ll continue to prioritize our ad products, along with health and our investments to drive ongoing growth in mDAU. We remain confident that focusing on our most important priorities and delivering higher-performing, better ad formats will deliver better outcomes for all of our stakeholders for years to come.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Twitter revenue falls 19% in Q2 2020, monetizable users rise 34% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/23/twitter-earnings-q2-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Twitter revenue falls 19% in Q2 2020, monetizable users rise 34% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Twitter's profile page on Twitter.com Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Twitter has reported strong user growth for Q2 2020, even though revenue — which was already widely expected to be down — fell below analysts’ expectations.
The social networking giant announced its most recent financial and user metrics this morning, revealing revenues of $686 million — a year-on-year (YoY) decrease of 19% on the $841 million reported last year and a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) decrease of around 15% on the $808 million for Q1 2020.
Twitter also reported an operating loss of $124 million, compared to a $7 million loss for Q1.
Twitter hadn’t provided any guidance ahead of its latest earnings, largely due to the impact COVID-19 is having on a business that relies mostly on advertising dollars. However, the consensus estimate for Twitter’s income was around $708 million.
It’s worth noting that the drop in revenue was more pronounced in Q2 because the global lockdown only really took effect in the last few weeks of the previous quarter.
User growth On a positive note, Twitter reported 186 million “monetizable daily active users” (mDAUs), up 34% on the 139 million it reported for the same period last year and 12% on the 166 million for the previous quarter. Twitter stopped reporting total monthly active users (MAU) last July, choosing instead to focus on an entirely new mDAU metric it defines as individuals who log in through Twitter.com or any of the mobile apps that are able to show advertisements. This excludes those who don’t log in or who use TweetDeck or other third-party clients.
All in all, Twitter’s Q2 2020 story was similar to that of Q1 insofar as engagement was up, with “external factors” such as COVID-19 and other global events driving more frequent users to the platform. “Our work to serve the conversation around COVID-19, to help people find trusted sources of information, to better organize and surface the many topics and interests that bring people to Twitter … helped us serve our larger audience,” Twitter wrote in its shareholder letter.
Last month, Twitter job postings indicated it is working on a new subscription platform as it seeks revenue channels beyond advertising. While the company hasn’t divulged exactly what it has in store, it did mention subscriptions fleetingly in its shareholder letter, confirming that this is still a very early-stage initiative and isn’t expected to generate revenue in 2020.
Finally, CEO Jack Dorsey addressed the recent hack that impacted more than 100 accounts , many of which belonged to high-profile users, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Dorsey said the company “moved quickly to address what happened, and [has] taken additional steps to improve resiliency against targeted social engineering attempts.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"U.S. Senate hearing to reform Section 230 internet law becomes political showdown | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/u-s-senate-hearing-to-reform-section-230-internet-law-becomes-political-showdown"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages U.S. Senate hearing to reform Section 230 internet law becomes political showdown Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey gives his opening statement remotely during the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing 'Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?', on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., October 28, 2020.
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( Reuters ) — A U.S.
Senate hearing to reform an internet law and hold tech companies accountable for how they moderate content quickly turned into a political scuffle as lawmakers not only went after the companies but also attacked each other.
Lawmakers are split on ways to hold Big Tech accountable under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from liability over content posted by users but also lets the firms shape political discourse.
Republican lawmakers used most of their time during the hearing to accuse the companies of selective censorship against conservatives. Democrats primarily focused on insufficient action against misinformation that interferes with the general election.
In response to a limited number of questions discussing the law, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Alphabet’s Google said it was crucial to free expression on the internet. They said Section 230 gives them the tools to strike a balance between preserving free speech and moderating content, even as they appeared open to the idea that the law needs moderate changes.
All three CEOs also agreed the companies should be held liable if their platforms act as publishers, but they denied being the referees of political speech — a claim that angered some Republicans.
Republican senator Ted Cruz went after Twitter’s Jack Dorsey after the CEO said Twitter has no influence over elections.
“Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” Cruz asked, referring to the platform’s decision to block stories from the New York Post about the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Ahead of the hearing, the senator released a picture on Twitter titled “Free Speech showdown Cruz vs Dorsey” that showed him and Twitter’s Dorsey pitted against each other.
Democratic senator Brian Schatz said he did not have any questions, calling the hearing “nonsense.” “This is bullying, and it is for electoral purposes,” he said.
Other Democrats, including Tammy Baldwin, Ed Markey, and Amy Klobuchar, said the hearing was held to help President Donald Trump’s reelection effort.
Trump, who alleges the companies stifle conservative voices, tweeted “Repeal Section 230!” during the hearing.
Dorsey, who drew the most criticism from Republicans, warned the committee that eroding the foundation of Section 230 could significantly hurt how people communicate online. Google’s Sundar Pichai said his company operates without political bias and that doing otherwise would be against its business interests.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who briefly had difficulty with his internet connection at the start of the hearing, said he supports changing the law but also warned that tech platforms are likely to censor more to avoid legal risks if Section 230 is repealed. Biden has expressed support for revoking the law.
No more ‘free pass’ Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the committee, said it was important to shield companies from liability without giving them the ability to censor content they dislike.
“The time has come for that free pass to end,” he said.
Wicker also criticized Twitter’s decision to block the New York Post stories about Biden’s son and Facebook’s move to limit their reach.
He and other senators, such as Cory Gardner, went after Twitter for not taking down tweets from world leaders that allegedly spread misinformation but going aggressively after Trump’s tweets.
U.S. lawmakers are not the only ones pushing for reform. The European Union’s executive commission is drafting a new Digital Services Act that, in addition to tackling market abuses by dominant platforms, would address liability for harmful or illegal content. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is due to unveil her proposals on December 2.
( Reporting by Nandita Bose and David Shepardson in Washington. Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington and Douglas Busvine in Frankfurt. Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Lisa Shumaker.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Ted Price interview -- Insomniac's 25 years of excellence, Spider-Man, and leadership | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/05/ted-price-interview-insomniacs-25-years-of-excellence-spider-man-and-leadership"
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"Game Development View All Programming OS and Hosting Platforms Metaverse View All Virtual Environments and Technologies VR Headsets and Gadgets Virtual Reality Games Gaming Hardware View All Chipsets & Processing Units Headsets & Controllers Gaming PCs and Displays Consoles Gaming Business View All Game Publishing Game Monetization Mergers and Acquisitions Games Releases and Special Events Gaming Workplace Latest Games & Reviews View All PC/Console Games Mobile Games Gaming Events Game Culture Ted Price interview — Insomniac’s 25 years of excellence, Spider-Man, and leadership Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Spider-Man lived up to its billing.
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Ted Price is basking in the glow of the success of Marvel’s Spider-Man, which has sold more than 9 million copies since it debuted last fall. But the CEO of Insomniac Games had very humble beginnings in the video game industry.
He started Insomniac Games (first known as Extreme Software) in 1994. With Al Hastings and his brother, Brian, Price went to work on Disruptor , a science fiction shooter game that publishers repeatedly rejected. Price was down to his last $1,000. They started developing Disruptor for the 3DO, but that early game console started tanking. So Mark Cerny, a producer at Universal/Cerny Games, suggested they switch the game to the PlayStation, Sony’s fledgling game console.
Universal published Disruptor. It didn’t do well, but it led to more projects. The next game was Spyro the Dragon, which was a family-friendly platformer with a larger audience target audience than Disruptor. Spyro became a hit, and it’s still around today. Since then, Insomniac went on to bigger games, and now it has crossed its 25th anniversary as a company. Its games include Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, Fuse, Sunset Overdrive, The Unspoken, Song of the Deep, and most recently, Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Insomniac now has 260 employees — Insomniacs — in Burbank, California and other locations. I talked to Price about the company’s history and how it has been able to survive for 25 years in the highly competitive video game business. Price said he is “still learning” when it comes to making games. Our conversation covered the risks of doing virtual reality as well as Price’s own view of leadership, as exemplified when he created a video objecting to President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban in January 2017. Price is also a staunch supporter of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and its annual DICE Summit, where I’ve seen him every year for a couple of decades.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Price will be a speaker at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2019 conference on April 23 and April 24 in Los Angeles. Here’s an edited preview of our interview.
Above: Ted Price is CEO and founder of Insomniac Games.
GamesBeat: Congratulations on 25 years. I watched your video, which was nice. Did you guys ever describe much about what happened when you got started? Ted Price: It’s been rare that I tell the story about it, but I’m happy to share some of the early days. February of 1994, tomorrow actually, 25 years ago, is when we received the approved articles of incorporation from the California Secretary of State. That marks the official beginning of Insomniac. Back then I had filed the articles under Extreme Software. We ultimately changed the name, but in February it was me in a 10’ by 10’ office with a 3DO dev station that I’d spent a lot of my savings on. I had grand hopes and dreams, but very little clue about what it took to make games.
I struggled for a while, and I got very lucky in meeting a guy named Al Hastings, who was in his senior year at Princeton, which was also my alma mater. We’d never run into each other because we were a few years apart, but I called him thanks to an introduction from a friend, and he agreed to come out and join this nascent company as soon as he graduated. What was fantastic about that May-June period when he came out in 1994 was, we dove in and made a demo for a game, our first game, Disruptor.
What Al did was magic. He created a first-person shooter engine in a month. He really is one of the industry’s wizards. He’s an unsung wizard in this industry. We recorded the demo on a VHS tape and we got into my Saturn, which was all I could afford at the time, and we drove up and down California cold-calling every publisher we could. We showed everybody we could the tape and got rejected every single time.
It was about a month later that we were down to my last thousand dollars, which had to pay for the rent on my apartment, the rent on our office, our food, everything. I was thinking that this was going to fail before it even started. But again, another friend called and said, “You should talk to the people at Universal. They’ve just started an interactive division.” We jumped in the car one more time, drove up from San Diego to Los Angeles, and presented the tape to Mark Cerny, who had been brought on as the executive producer at this new publisher.
Above: Disruptor was Insomniac’s first game. It debuted in 1996.
He took a look at the tape and he said, “You guys are pretty talented for amateurs. We need to think about it.” We got back in the car and drove down to San Diego, and I thought it was all over. When we got back, my answering machine light was blinking. It was Mark, and he left a message saying, “Let’s do a deal.” That’s where we realized that this could be a thing.
The next thing we did was call Al Hastings’ brother Brian, who was working at Siemens, the hardware company. He agreed to join us, and the three of us began to put together Disruptor in earnest. From there we learned a lot. We’ve been on a great ride since 1994.
GamesBeat: How much did Disruptor sell? What platforms was it on? Price: We released Disruptor on the PlayStation. We’d intended to release it on the 3DO, but what ended up happening, about midway through production on Disruptor, 3DO as a company tanked. Mark Cerny and a couple of others at Universal suggested that we consider moving over to the PlayStation, because the PlayStation had arrived, and it was a hit at the time. I was panicked. I thought there was no way we’d be able to move everything over. Al very calmly answered and said, “Sure, no problem.” In about two weeks he ported the engine from 3DO to PlayStation.
Above: Ted Price in the Spyro days in the 1990s.
GamesBeat: How much capital do you think you put out when you were starting? $10,000, something like that? Price: It was definitely more than that. I’d been working in a startup medical company. I really didn’t have any expenses, so I saved everything. I did some database consulting and saved all that money again. I lived in a tiny apartment. I didn’t have a fancy car. I played volleyball on the beach for fun, which cost nothing. But my goal, really, was to start a console video game company and create the kind of story-driven games I grew up playing and loved so much.
It definitely required investing in hardware. It wasn’t just a 3DO dev station. I had to buy PCs. Eventually, once we signed the deal with Universal, we picked up a couple of Silicon Graphics workstations, which back then were the pinnacle of computer graphics. I’d always wanted to have a Silicon Graphics workstation and use Alias Wavefront on it. That was one of the benefits of signing a deal with Universal. Of course, since then things have changed.
GamesBeat: How was the reception for Disruptor? Price: Disruptor was called the best game that nobody’s ever heard of. That was a quote from one of the reviews that came out describing the game. It was well-received, and I think first-person shooter fans who played it — at least the feedback we got was that they really liked the controls. They enjoyed the setups. They enjoyed the world-building, because we had a vision for a futuristic romp through our own solar system visiting various moons around different planets.
The story itself was a lot of fun for us, because we were trying to tell a very serious story, but we unwittingly made it humorous, given many of the scenes where the characters are interacting in a really cheesy way. It became, at least from what we heard, a cult classic, given the goofiness of our characters trying to be very serious.
As an aside, those scenes were filmed on videotape. We didn’t use CG back then. We were taking cues from games like Warhawk and Wing Commander that were using live action. We didn’t have the budgets that these other games had, so if you go back and look the footage, our sets are ridiculously cheap, and the costumes are, ah — they are not too aggressively styled. [ Laughs ] But I give a lot of credit to the actors and the crew that was helping us try to tell the story.
Above: Spyro the Dragon came out in 1998 and was one of a number of collaborations between Insomniac and Mark Cerny.
GamesBeat: You sound like you think of it a little sheepishly now.
Price: I like to go back at the videos on YouTube and laugh at how we came across. But we really loved making the game. Al, Brian, and I, and others who eventually joined, we were FPS fans. It was a great experience for us to learn how to design controls and setups in a way that was consistently fresh for players.
I think also we learned a lot about balancing during that first game, given that it’s not just about your weapons. It’s also about your psionics, these mental powers you have. You’re not moving back and forth between using weapons and your psionics. That helped prepare us the future when we would jump into more complex game loops.
GamesBeat: Was it successful enough to keep you going into making the next game? Price: It was definitely not a hit. We had a three-game deal with Universal, so what we knew was that the game would likely sell enough to break even, but it wasn’t going to make anybody money. What we needed to do was think laterally and understand what players wanted on the PlayStation and what opportunities there were in the market.
I give a lot of credit to Mark Cerny, who came to us and said, “The PlayStation doesn’t have a lot of family-friendly games. You might want to think about something that would reach a broader audience.” At the time, having finished Disruptor, that was a great suggestion. Disruptor, despite its cheesiness at time, was a fairly dark game. We wanted to create something more lighthearted, more family-friendly.
Above: The early Insomniac Games team.
We began discussing ideas, and pretty quickly the idea about making a game centered on a dragon came up. We drove in, and Spyro quickly evolved into a young, adventurous, brash dragon in a world where there were many opportunities to tell a fantastic story with lots of humor. As we starting digging in that started appealing more and more to all of us, and that’s when Spyro was born. And Spyro was a hit.
GamesBeat: How did that intellectual property wind up at Activision? Did it change hands somehow? Price: No. Universal owned the IP, ultimately, for Spyro. Universal Interactive changed hands several times, eventually becoming part of Activision Blizzard. It went through a lot of mergers. There’s a lot of data out there, a lot of stories about the transition to Vivendi and so on. You can watch as Spyro evolved.
I give them a lot of credit, because for years after we’d moved on from Spyro and began developing Ratchet and other games, Spyro languished. There really hadn’t been any Spyro games that struck a chord with players. But the Toys for Bob guys, with their toys to life idea, really nailed it. Spyro ended up being the perfect vehicle for that.
Above: Ratchet once again wonders if he left the gas on.
GamesBeat: The ride across those 25 years, what have been some of your observations about that? Either lessons for other developers, or some moments where maybe you thought you guys weren’t going to make it.
Price: What’s helped us weather the ups and downs of the industry is a commitment to collaboration across the entire studio. Transparency, where everybody knows what’s going on. The commitment to the philosophy that great ideas come from everywhere–as a studio, from the very beginning, we have always relied on an approach where we want everybody to take ownership of the creative process and contribute to it and solve problems as a group.
This is not a company where you have one lead designer or one creative director telling everyone what to do. We never operated that way, and I don’t believe that it works well for a culture like ours, where so many different disciplines are working together to create magic. I feel like we’ve been very consistent, culture-wise, in an industry that tends to be inconsistent.
GamesBeat: It’s a rare thing, to have a company reach 25 years in this industry. Especially a studio.
Price: I’ll also say that we’ve enjoyed working with many different partners as well, and I think we’ve learned a lot from all of our partners who have joined us on this ride. I think that’s been a good lesson for all of us, and probably for others in the industry as well. When you have a great partnership, it amplifies what you can do.
With that in mind, we’ve also self-published titles, but I think some of our best are when we’ve gotten objective feedback from outside of Insomniac. That’s useful. In development it’s easy to get focused on what you’re doing day to day and not be able to take a step back and ask, is this good? Is this going to work? Is this consistent with our original vision? Sometimes having an objective outside party — it could be a publisher, it could be usability testers, it could be anybody — giving you that feedback is key. Another key is to listen to that feedback and evaluate it objectively, not emotionally. We’ve had to learn how to do that.
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"The DeanBeat: Would politics make video games better? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/19/the-deanbeat-would-politics-make-video-games-better"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: Would politics make video games better? Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus showed a Nazified America.
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As I watched my Facebook feed explode about President Donald Trump’s racist comments this week, I couldn’t help but notice that game developers are political creatures, just like everybody else. But if you looked at their games for political messages, you would think that they’re apolitical, concerned only with near-political game environments that don’t take a stand.
This subject flared up ever since Donald Trump was elected as the U.S. president, but his presidential misadventures have not yet inspired a masterful intertwining of art and politics in a video game. Perhaps we should not expect to see that happen because the interests of commerce rule the day. I hope we can overcome those interests because I believe that putting some form of higher meaning into video games is one way to make games as universally recognized as an art as other media.
Ted Price , CEO of Insomniac Games, took a stand against Trump’s Muslim ban in 2016, going so far as making a video expressing his company’s opposition to it. That was admirable. But there wasn’t a ton of contemporary political commentary disguised in a popular game made by Price’s studio, Marvel’s Spider-man.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Spider-man probably wasn’t the right platform for political commentary. We have seen other games come close to dealing with the topics of white nationalism, yet they have fallen short. Ubisoft’s creative leaders say that games like Far Cry 5 (about a religious militia taking over Montana) and The Division 2 (about a secret military organization preventing the fall of Washington, D.C. after a plague) do not make political statements.
Machine Games, the creator of the Wolfenstein series, was surprised to stumble on a political opportunity in its remake of id Software’s classic Wolfenstein games, which take place in an alternate universe where the Nazis won World War II. Much like Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle TV show, the Nazis have overrun America and the Ku Klux Klan is now allied with them to make things worse.
Above: Sophia (left) and Jessica are the daughters of BJ Blazkowicz in Wolfenstein: Youngblood.
But did this storyline — extended with this month’s pending release of the co-op game Wolfenstein: Youngblood — have anything to do with the rise of the alt. right, Ferguson, Gamergate, Trump, Charlottesville, and this week’s events? Not really, said Jerk Gustafsson, executive producer of Wolfenstein: Youngblood at Sweden’s Machine Games, in an interview with GamesBeat.
“We started work on that story in 2014. It was quite a lot of time before the game actually came out, and a lot of things happened in those years. In that game, we wanted to tell the story of B.J. growing up, his childhood,” Gustafsson said. “It was a very dark story, with his abusive father and dark themes in general. And at the same time we wanted to tell a story about what happened if the Nazis won the war and took over the U.S. Since that happened around that time, especially with Charlottesville, it came to a point where we got a lot of, especially with interviews and talking to media — it led to a lot more discussions around the political aspect of it than we anticipated when we set out to do the game. That took us a bit by surprise.” In other words, Wolfenstein comes close to being a social commentary on Trump’s presidency and the parallels that many liberals see to the Nazi’s in his apparent comfort with white nationalists. But that’s an accident. The prescient storyline was … accidental. Those of us who really liked the parallels were just giving the writers too much credit for boldness.
The same goes for 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which depicted a world divided between “natural” humans and “augs,” or people augmented with cybernetic technology. Square Enix said that the similarity of the game’s slogan, “Augs Lives Matters,” was simply an “unfortunate coincidence,” versus the real world slogan Black Lives Matter, as The New Yorker reported.
Once in a while, we get a game that is overtly political. In 2012, Spec-Ops: The Line acknowledged the horrors of war in a way that video games rarely do. Detroit: Become Human was set in Detroit and it clearly showed how bad it would for humans to create human-like androids and enslave them, as African Americans were once enslaved.
“Am I worried about technology in general? Yes. I’m more worried about human beings than about machines, though. It’s not a coincidence that in Detroit, we made the choice that the good guys are the androids and the bad guys are human,” said David Cage, cofounder of Quantic Dream, creator of Detroit, in an interview.
Above: Spec-Ops: The Line Such games are often criticized as too political, and not fun. Many fans, particularly those sympathetic to Gamergate, view the critics who want these games as “social justice warriors,” a pejorative term.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will likely be controversia l for the level of realistic violence it depicts, as well as the blurring of the line between soldiers and civilians in modern war. Studio director Taylor Kurosaki declared that the game was “ripped from the headlines” and was created to show “the world we are living in today,” Kurosaki said.
And some games introduce politics accidentally.
Amazon recently showed off New World, a game about the colonization of a new continent. But instead of fighting off native Americans, the colonists — who are the good guys — fight zombie-like creatures.
Some critics noted that this sanitization of colonialism’s ugly reality was racist in itself, as it dehumanized the native Americans into beings that were easy to kill.
Above: Zombies in the New World! This takes me back to my days as an English major, when my professors posed questions about whether great works of literature had multiple layers of meaning, like The Wasteland (clearly, T.S. Eliot’s famous poem had those layers). But should they have political layers? Arthur Miller’s The Crucible , about the Salem witch trials, was surely inspired by McCarthyism’s Red Scare. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a condemnation of the capitalist overlords of the meat-packing industry.
Sometimes this added layer of meaning makes us feel like the game is worth studying, and lots of game development programs in colleges are doing just that. That’ probably why The New Yorker and The Guardian wrote about politics in games this year. But does that diminish the fun layer? Or does it hurt the commercial potential of the game? For sure, publishers are shying away from declaring that games have political intent because they want the game to have the widest potential audience. If only anti-Trump gamers bought Wolfenstein: Youngblood, then that would be a travesty for Bethesda’s bottom line. But this fear ignores another fact: We can outgrow the tropes of video game stories, and some of us want something like HBO. I’ll take a show like Chernobyl over a lot of feel-good television.
Above: Orwell: Ignorance is Strength is the second season in the surveillance game.
I acknowledge that the main object is to make games fun, and I don’t hate video games that are made just to be fun. But I put myself in the camp of social justice warriors. Let those game developers who want to do so express their political views in transparent ways, even if their bosses want to shut them up. I sincerely wish that the crazy politics of Donald Trump would inspire someone to create a beautiful metaphorical treatment that gives us all some clarity about what all of this means.
I wish we could have someone in the game industry emerge, like George Orwell with 1984 , or like the antiwar songs that emerged during Vietnam, to show us the way. We have some hope, as one small indie game studio, Osmotic Studios, was inspired to create a PC game called Orwell in 2013 — in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures — about a surveillance society.
But that game hasn’t made as much impact as it might have, and it doesn’t have the kind of big-budget that the largest publishers can throw at a game. I would hate to think that indies are the only ones who can afford to take a stand. But I am grateful that they are there as a counterbalance to the deafening silence from the big game companies.
I believe that I’m raising a lot of questions without many answers here. But I hope to address them in panels that I may be moderating at Devcom in Cologne, Germany, and at Game Daily Connect in Anaheim. I hope you can help me find some answers.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Jam City launches Disney Frozen Adventures mobile game | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/14/jam-city-launches-disney-frozen-adventures-mobile-game"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Jam City launches Disney Frozen Adventures mobile game Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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It’s time to let it go. Jam City is launching its Disney Frozen Adventures mobile game in advance of the November 22 launch of the Frozen 2 film. And it hopes to encounter plenty of pent-up demand for a game associated with Frozen, which generated $1.3 billion at the box office in 2013.
Disney Frozen Adventures is a match-3 game with a narrative set in Frozen’s kingdom of Arendelle. I got a demo of the game and talked about it with Chris DeWolfe, CEO of Jam City, during an interview.
Players can join the characters Anna, Elsa, and Olaf to solve puzzles, decorate the castle, and explore environments inspired by Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen and Frozen 2 films.
It’s a big game for Jam City, which previously launched Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery in April 2018 in a partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The Harry Potter game helped Jam City raise $145 million in funding in January.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! “We’re super-excited about it because it’s really authentic to the movie,” DeWolfe said in our interview. “It follows a lot of the same storylines, the same design, obviously the characters, decorations, interior design, costuming, music, all those kinds of things. We want to make it feel like, in some ways, an extension of the movie, but really put the user in control. We also wanted the fun of a match-three mechanic. It’s a match-three game that takes place inside the Frozen world.” The new game aims to take match-3 up a notch with “decoration experiences.” When you get through a level, Disney Frozen Adventures shifts the perspective of the game, putting players into the rooms of a place where they can decorate and explore.
Jam City designed the game putting players at “eye level” within environments to create an immersive point of view rather than looking down at the action. The 3D nature of the game allows players to pan around the room to better explore their surroundings and choose their favorite decorative options.
“Disney Frozen Adventures brings beloved characters Elsa, Anna, and Olaf to life in a new journey that allows players to design and explore the world of Arendelle while pushing the boundaries of game design to create a one of a kind adventure,” said DeWolfe. “Collaborating with our friends at Disney on the globally beloved franchise has been a tremendous experience. With the continuing meteoric growth of mobile gaming, we hope to delight millions of fans with this interactive Frozen experience.” Above: Disney Frozen Adventures lets fans decorate their fantasy palace.
Besides your usual match-3 gameplay, the game is a deep dive for fans of the world of frozen. It has quests and adventures, multiple locations, key characters, and a storyline that is authentic to Frozen.
Jam City’s team worked with the Frozen 2 film team to make the environment and music of the game as authentic as possible. When you solve a puzzle in the match-3 game, you earn snowflakes. You use them to decorate the palace in a meta-game. You go into a 3D-like environment that resembles 18th century Norway. You have to collect things and use them to decorate. You’ll run into different characters, who can give you quests to complete, keeping you on an endless cycle of collecting snowflakes and solving puzzles.
Above: Disney Frozen Adventures is a match-3 game.
DeWolfe said Disney is helping to promote it, and Jam City itself will do a big mobile marketing campaign in places like Japan, where Frozen is really popular.
DeWolfe said of the original Frozen , “That was six years ago. There’s massive pent-up demand for anything Frozen. We all remember the song. All of our kids were singing it. Any store you went into, someone was singing it. Halloween costumes, that whole year. There hasn’t been any real major project around Frozen that’s come out since then. But there’s a real devotion by Disney to the IP and growing it out into a franchise.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
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"The DeanBeat: The Political Machine 2020 shows how hard it is to beat Trump | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/06/the-deanbeat-the-political-machine-2020-shows-how-hard-it-is-to-beat-trump"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: The Political Machine 2020 shows how hard it is to beat Trump Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Hey, all of you folks who have been wanting a game about politics: it’s here.
The Political Machine 2020 , from Stardock Entertainment, arrived this week on the PC, and I played a few rounds of the presidential campaign strategy simulation game on Steam.
It reminded me a bit of the old Parker Brothers board game Landslide from 1971. I first learned about presidential politics in that game, and you can do the same with your family with this title, either in a single-player game or in multiplayer. And this new game gives me an excuse to talk about one of my favorite hobbies: politics.
This version of The Political Machine is a remake of the previous titles ( The Political Machine of 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016), and it’s ripped from the headlines, with this year’s candidates squaring off against Donald Trump. It has 10 different candidates you can choose from, including a fictional “massive comet.” And it has everybody who matters or doesn’t matter: Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Catherine Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and Tulsi Gabbard. Besides Trump, you can also run against George W. Bush, a giant meteor, Mike Pence, and Mitt Romney. Romney’s charisma is a comic “cold fish.” Above: Elizabeth Warren is a Democratic Socialist in The Political Machine 2020.
I played as Warren, the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. She has seven characteristics: stamina (normal), charisma (warm), intelligence (smart), media bias (tingly), experience (outsider), minority appeal (typical), and starting money (average). That last trait proved to be a decisively bad feature as, in this game, you can buy the presidency. Or Trump can. Trump’s attributes are stamina (hyper), charisma (warm), intelligence (sharp), media bias (loathed), experience (outsider), minority appeal (some), and starting money (tycoon).
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! I did a lot of trail-and-error campaigning. It was a waste of time to go to Alaska, as you learn that every action you take in your 21-week campaign is critical. And you have to go to the states where a lot of electoral votes are up for grabs.
Most states have some kind of political bent, like real life, and it’s pointless for Trump to try to win California. But the battleground states are up for grabs like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I found I could raise a lot of money for Warren by making frequent visits to the rich states, California and New York.
You can do some damage to Trump by solidifying your ideology with various campaign planks, like adopting diversity measures or pledging to fight climate change. You can also bring up the coronavirus and say how bad a job that Trump is doing at handling it. Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, said in an email that the studio would update the news available in the game regularly to make it feel current.
Playing on the normal difficulty setting, on a first try, I got trounced by Trump. I ran out of money a couple of times as I tried to run media campaigns in too many states, but I could never catch up with all of the ad campaigns that Trump was running in all of the other states. So I now understand that Bloomberg’s money and any other rich donors are going to make a real difference in a Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders campaign against Trump. On a second try, I bumped up my available initial funds and barely won.
Above: The Political Machine 2020 shows you which states you need to win to be president.
When you hover over the map, you see the electoral votes for a given state, like 29 for Florida, and you can see what percentage of the state’s voters side with you, how many side with Trump, and those who are undecided. You need 270 votes to win the election. Trump gets to place multiple campaign headquarters at the outset, as he has an advantage as an incumbent.
You start the game with $3 million in your war chest, and you can move around the states and raise money, spend it on ads, spend your ideology points, and perhaps spend a lot of money on a dirty trick. Of course, I’m not sure how much work the developers put into revising their game so that it takes into account the financial realities of today. I suspect these imaginary campaign dollar numbers are way off base, and so a real presidential race will turn out much different.
If I went to town hall events that popped up around the country, I could earn ideology points. And as a Democrat, I could only spend points on social justice, the environment, and diversity. But I only had one pool of points to spend on all of those issues. So you see a lot of trade-offs in the game like you see in real-world politics. If you want to win in a state like Oregon, then maybe you better spend ideology points on the environment. If you want to win in Michigan, maybe it makes sense to go after social justice (and raising wages) as your issue.
As a bare-bones remake of an existing game, it’s not bad. The realism of the news embedded in the game makes it feel like a modern simulation, but the animations are pretty lacking, consisting mostly of airplanes flying across the map. You can check out the state of the voters on various issues by clicking on various map types.
I found that this was a nice fantasy. I could simulate how to win the presidency, and also figure out how to think like a political strategist. It was more fun than just speculating about how the race would turn out on social media, as I see so many of my friends doing these days. But I liked its teaching moments and the dirty tricks that you could pull to try to bring important states to your side. I learned that it isn’t all that easy to beat someone like Trump, who has a pile of money to buy the election — as well as a populist message.
At the very least, the game will give you grist for a conversation about politics with your family or friends, and it could motivate you to read more about politics. And if it gets you to vote come November, then it’s worth the $15. For me, it whets my appetite for a more sophisticated and realistic simulation.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"The DeanBeat: Apple v. Epic -- a briefing on the antitrust arguments and interesting facts | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/11/the-deanbeat-apple-v-epic-a-briefing-on-the-antitrust-arguments-and-interesting-facts"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: Apple v. Epic — a briefing on the antitrust arguments and interesting facts Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Travis Scott's concert in Fortnite drew 27.7 million viewers. 2 million watched it on iOS.
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We’re at a huge moment in tech and antitrust history with the litigation initiated by Fortnite maker Epic Games against Apple and Google. While the Google dispute has taken a backseat in the news, the conflict with Apple has gone hot because of that company’s retaliatory strike and a request for a temporary restraining order from Epic.
The conflict began August 13 when Epic announced a discount policy and direct payment mechanism for Fortnite that Apple and Google said violated their respective terms of service.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long argued that the 30% commissions the big companies take of every game transaction is unfair and Epic should be able to directly sell its in-app goods to players for lower prices. It argued that app distribution and payment could be as open on Apple’s iOS platform as it is on personal computers.
Apple and Google banned Fortnite, and Apple fired back with the claim that Epic sought to get itself a sweetheart deal other developers couldn’t get. (This was an easily refuted claim, as you’ll see below). Apple said it built the App Store on top of the iOS mobile platform at great financial risk and that Epic was trying to get a free ride now it felt it had paid enough fees. Epic sued both Apple and Google for antitrust and posted a parody video mocking Apple’s stance for freedom in its groundbreaking 1984 ad.
Apple then tried to withdraw developer tool support from Epic’s Unreal game engine, which 11 million developers use, and a federal judge granted Epic’s temporary restraining order to prevent that from happening.
Microsoft, an Unreal user, supported Epic in the Unreal Engine TRO matter.
A week ago, Epic argued why Fortnite should be allowed to return to Apple’s App Store over Apple’s objections. On September 8, Apple made its case in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, arguing that shouldn’t happen and alleging Epic owes damages. We’ve reviewed all of the documents and have summarized the arguments on both sides, as well as salient facts behind those arguments and interesting details about the business. On Wednesday, Epic said Apple will no longer allow users to sign in to their Epic Games accounts using Sign In With Apple, beginning September 11. (Update at 10:47 a.m. Pacific: Apple reversed this decision).
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Meanwhile, Google filed a response distancing it from the Apple dispute.
Epic claims it’s leading the charge for all developers and says it can only do so because it isn’t beholden to the tech giants. Fortnite revenue has given the company a valuation of $17.3 billion , and the company recently raised another $250 million from Sony and $1.78 billion from other investors.
Apple, whose stock market value is above $2 trillion, is defending itself with rhetoric of victimhood and innovation, while Epic is attacking on the grounds of freedom, openness, fairness, and revolution.
In light of all this, here’s what we found interesting about the filings.
What’s at stake Above: Fortnite is getting second-generation real-time ray-tracing.
Epic Games hasn’t asked the court for any damages. It is only requesting that Apple be prohibited from punishing Epic Games for its actions related to the direct payments in Fortnite. Apple has asked for compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and interest, as well as restitution and disgorgement of all earnings, profits, compensation, benefits, and other allegedly ill-gotten gains Epic obtained as a result of conduct in violation of Apple’s terms of service.
While the dispute started with Epic trying to get Apple to accept an alternative payment system for Fortnite, the conflict is now about the future relationship between game and app publishers and the big companies that control their platforms. Indie developers will be watching closely to see whether companies will still be able to charge fees for the right to publish on their platforms.
Epic’s App Store monopoly argument Above: Epic Games wants a more open platform.
Epic argued that Apple is a monopolist in two respects: its control of app distribution on the App Store and its requirement that users pay through its payment processing system.
And Epic argues that because Apple has monopoly power, antitrust laws say Apple can’t use that power to shut competition out of the market for either the app store or the payment system. Epic does, however, acknowledge that Apple created value with the App Store.
“To be clear, Epic does not seek to force Apple to provide distribution and processing services for free, nor does Epic seek to enjoy Apple’s services without paying for them. What Epic wants is the freedom not to use Apple’s App Store or IAP (in-app purchase), and instead to use and offer competing service,” Epic said.
Apple has asserted its store isn’t a separate product, but Epic argues app distribution is an “aftermarket” derived from the primary market of the smartphone platform. Epic says the courts should view the relevant antitrust market as the aftermarket, which has a unique brand and a unique market and is not part of a larger single product. Epic isn’t challenging Apple’s rights on the smartphone platform, only in the aftermarket, where Epic alleges Apple is behaving in a monopolistic manner. It argues that Apple cuts off choices (such as downloading apps from websites) that are available to consumers in other markets. The U.S. Supreme Court is examining this issue of the aftermarket in a case dubbed Apple vs. Pepper.
While Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in the presence of Google’s Android, Epic argued the duopoly has negative effects on the market and that Apple, rather than Google, has the most valuable users. Epic noted that two-thirds of the profits are on Apple’s platform and that Apple has a virtual lock on a billion highly desirable users who spend more than those on Android. In his testimony, economist David Evans argued on Epic’s behalf that the cost of switching is very high for anyone thinking about moving from iOS to Android. It’s basically like starting over.
Google pointed out in its own filing that Android permits multiple stores on the platform and allows users to sideload apps via the internet to bypass the Google Play store. Apple does not allow these actions. (Epic still contends Google engages in anticompetitive actions, such as making sideloading impractical and writing contracts that stop phone makers from having multiple stores on a smartphone.) Epic said Apple had a 40% revenue share of all smartphones sold from the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2020. Epic noted that Apple’s iPhones sell for $300 or more, with an average selling price of $790 during this period. Among smartphones that sold for $300 or more, Apple had a 57% revenue share and a 49% unit share. Those aren’t necessarily monopoly market shares, but the question is whether Apple still gets monopoly power because the cost of going with an alternative is so high.
Since Apple cut off Epic’s access to the App Store, Epic has seen a 60% drop in its daily active users on iOS. Epic might never see those users come back. That’s why Epic said it could suffer irreparable harm unless the court acts quickly and issues a temporary restraining order.
Epic’s argument on Apple’s payment monopoly Above: Tim Sweeney is the outspoken CEO of Epic Games.
The payment side is another antitrust battleground. For digital purchases, Apple requires developers to use its own payment service, which is not the case with other platforms, like the PC. But in select cases, Apple permits app makers to use other forms of payment.
Epic pointed out that in the case of app developers who provide physical services, like ridesharing, app makers can use other payment processing systems. Stripe provides in-app payment processing for Lyft. And Braintree handles payments for Uber, among other things. These app developers typically rely on payment processors that are not from Apple or Google because the developer must enable the user to complete a transaction while using the app. But with digital content apps, Apple requires developers to use Apple’s in-app purchase payment processing for in-app transactions. At the same time, Apple allows alternative digital payments when people are using premium video entertainment apps, such as Prime Video, Altice One, and Canal+.
Epic said this is proof that developers have material demand to use third-party payment processing services for in-app transactions in the absence of restrictions Apple has imposed. Epic said users could use alternative payments with much lower transaction fees, such as Amazon Pay, Authorize.net, Braintree, Chase Merchant Services, PayPal, Square, Stripe, and Xsolla.
Apple argues that payments aren’t a separate business; they’re part of a larger business. The company said, “Even setting aside the dispositive law on two-sided platforms, Epic’s factual allegations provide no support for defining IAP as a separate single-sided product market. Where the alleged tied product is an essential ingredient of the overall ‘method of business’ that is sold to customers, courts view them as one product.” Epic has also argued that Apple acted like a monopolist in rejecting cloud gaming apps that violate its payment system and app distribution monopoly from vendors such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia. These might become separate antitrust cases, but while those companies have complained, they haven’t taken legal action yet.
Apple threatens the Metaverse Above: The metaverse could be a victim of the Epic v. Apple fight.
Among other things, Epic said Apple’s removal of Fortnite from the App Store will stunt Epic’s efforts to build the Metaverse , the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One.
Epic describes the Metaverse as a multipurpose, persistent, and interactive virtual space.
Epic said Fortnite already bears many characteristics of the Metaverse, as it “fosters deep community, it’s an immersive experience centered around lasting social connection, it’s a playground to be anybody, yet it’s the most authentic expression of our true authentic selves.” Epic cited the flow of ideas in the social space of the game as a reason it could challenge and perhaps replace Facebook, Snapchat, and others. Epic noted that “major tech companies are focusing on the Metaverse frontier and have made significant investments, and Fortnite puts Epic ahead in this race.” But Epic said the success of Fortnite’s evolution into a Metaverse depends on having a large user base, which will make interacting there a better experience for potential new users. Epic argued that mobile users are critical to the base. Over 116 million registered users have accessed Fortnite through iOS, more than on any other platform. They have spent more than 2.86 billion hours in the app. By eliminating many of these players from Fortnite and blocking its capability to access over a billion iOS users, Apple could irreparably harm Epic’s chances, and the company says Apple is threatening its ability to create the Metaverse.
Apple simply denied this argument.
Apple’s arguments Above: Apple CEO Tim Cook is going all-in on privacy.
Apple criticized Epic for laying the groundwork for its lawsuit in advance, calling it a “sneak assault.” Apple said Epic used “subterfuge” in the form of a “hotfix” to change Fortnite so it could use a direct payment system that circumvented Apple’s cut. Epic technical executives argued such hotfixes are extremely common in the industry and that this wasn’t a case of a digital “Trojan Horse,” as Apple had termed it. But Apple said the hotfix was clearly intended to get around its security and payment system.
While Epic claimed the emergency started when Apple cut off Fortnite and then threatened to unplug the Unreal Engine, Apple called the situation a self-inflicted harm. Apple said Epic could simply return to the App Store with the prior version of Fortnite and pay some commissions while the lawsuit is pending.
“The harm raised by Epic here is completely avoidable — here and now. The asserted harm to Epic customers, whether of Fortnite or Unreal Engine, can be ended by Epic,” Apple said. “All of the users and developers that Epic asserts are at risk are disadvantaged only because Epic’s scheme included breaching its agreements and running into court for relief. Epic has put customers and developers in this position, not Apple.” Antitrust humor Apple had some funny writers on its side. It argued that temporary restraining orders (TROs) exist to remedy irreparable harm, not easily repairable “self-inflicted wounds.” Such characterizations are clearly designed to make Epic appear inept or greedy and paint Apple as the real victim.
Apple said, “Epic’s lawsuit is nothing more than a basic disagreement over money. Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multibillion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store. Epic’s demands for special treatment and cries of ‘retaliation’ cannot be reconciled with its flagrant breach of contract and its own business practices, as it rakes in billions by taking commissions on game developers’ sales and charging consumers up to $99.99 for bundles of ‘V-Bucks.'” Apple said Epic took advantage of the App Store for years — including the tools, technology, software, marketing opportunities, and customer reach it provided. Epic was one of the 27 million app developers that found value in creating apps for iOS in order to reach a billion customers in 175 countries. Apple said Epic then turned on it to avoid paying its share.
Apple accused Epic of mounting a “carefully orchestrated” campaign with a parody video and a “prepackaged TRO.” Apple said, “All of the injury Epic claims to itself, game players, and developers could have been avoided if Epic filed its lawsuit without breaching its agreements.” Apple also claimed it was surprised by this action, even though Epic’s Sweeney had warned Apple months in advance.
Above: The iPhone has been a boon to Epic, Apple claims.
Apple further argued that complying with Epic’s “emergency relief” would “set off a flood of additional requests for ’emergency’ relief and threaten the entire App Store ecosystem.” It said developers would breach their agreements, jeopardize the security of the App Store, and circumvent payments to Apple, all without consequence. Epic would of course say that’s exactly what it wants to see happen.
An essential facility? Antitrust law often grants relief to plaintiffs who argue that the defendant denied them the use of an “essential facility,” such as a toll bridge across a river. But Apple argued, “The courts have well understood that the essential facility theory is not an invitation to demand access to the property or privileges of another, on pain of antitrust penalties.” Apple said Epic claims Apple has denied it access to iOS but that this is “simply false.” Apple noted that even after it removed Fortnite from the App Store, Epic is still making Fortnite sales via existing iOS users. Apple said the App Store is not a public utility and that Epic has no right to reap “all the benefits Apple and the App Store provide without having to pay a penny.” The App Store — and the idea behind it — has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, Apple said. It began with 500 apps in 2008. Since then, the App Store has grown to 1.7 million apps. Apple said its human curators vet more than 100,000 apps a week in 81 languages.
“While Epic and its CEO take issue with the terms on which Apple has since 2008 provided the App Store to all developers, this does not provide cover for Epic to breach binding contracts, dupe a long-time business partner, pocket commissions that rightfully belong to Apple, and then ask this court to take a judicial sledgehammer to one of the 21st century’s most innovative business platforms simply because it does not maximize Epic’s revenues. By any measure, the App Store has revolutionized the marketplace and greatly benefited consumers and app developers like Epic. Apple looks forward to defending against Epic’s baseless claims,” Apple said.
Apple contends that its App Store was built on numerous innovations and that it should be rewarded by being allowed to charge what it wants. It notes that if the innovations were not valuable, it wouldn’t be getting paid so much money by so many developers. Apple also notes that its payment system is the way it ensures it gets paid.
Above: Apple maintains its payment system is how it ensures it gets paid by developers.
“If developers can avoid the digital checkout, it is the same as if a customer leaves an Apple retail store without paying for shoplifted products: Apple does not get paid,” Apple said.
Apple added that the commission is hardly unique.
“Google’s Play Store, the Amazon Appstore, and the Microsoft Store, and many video game digital marketplaces, such as Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and Steam, all have similar fees and requirements to use the marketplace’s official in-app purchase functionality,” Apple said.
Apple argued it has made big investments in security for the App Store and iOS over the years. If it allowed Epic to enable direct payments inside Fortnite, circumventing Apple’s own payment system, the company said it would run the risk of exposing users to security breaches.
The company said its concerns about Epic’s request were “hardly theoretical.” Apple noted that in 2018, Epic announced the Android version of Fortnite would be available through sideloading, rather than through the Google Play store. Apple said websites appeared to advertise the Android version of Fortnite, but those sites also distributed malware inside the game and Epic failed to police them.
Apple said that by 2019, Epic acknowledged that security vulnerabilities in non-iOS versions of Fortnite exposed hundreds of millions of players to being hacked. Apple said, “Although Apple does not leave it to any developer to keep the iOS platform safe and secure, Epic, in particular, had demonstrated that it could not be entrusted with this type of responsibility.” Epic has previously called this an exaggeration of the problem related to security.
The facts behind the arguments Above: Epic takes a swing at Apple.
Epic argued that it already has evidence users want an alternative app store with direct payments. It said 54% of iOS Fortnite users had used Epic’s direct payments from August 13 to August 27. Incidentally, I wondered why Epic didn’t just sue after Apple rejected an email request for Epic to handle direct payments for Fortnite and circumvent the App Store. Evidently, Epic wanted to demonstrate that Fortnite users had a real desire to use alternatives to Apple, so it made changes to its app via the hotfix to enable the direct payments in Fortnite that led to Apple’s crackdown.
During those same weeks, iOS daily active users of Fortnite declined 60% after Apple cut off further downloads and prevented updates for the app. Epic also said that 63% of Fortnite users on iOS access Fortnite only on iOS.
Apple said it has invested heavily in making application programming interfaces (APIs) for all developers in iOS 14. Apple also said it handles more than 25 million customer support cases a year through AppleCare and handles $500 million in refunds per year. Apple also boasted that the iOS app economy has become one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy, accounting for more than 2.1 million jobs in the U.S. across all 50 states, up 15% since last year, as part of the 2.7 million jobs Apple supports in the nation.
Apple also pointed out that it doesn’t have a monopoly when it comes to Fortnite. It noted that Epic itself said “of the more than $1.8 billion earned by Fortnite in 2019, less than 12% came from iOS.” Factual disputes Above: The Epic Games event at GDC 2019.
Apple made a couple of claims that are easily disproven. When players tried to download updates for Fortnite on iOS, or if they tried to download the app after August 13, they saw a message from Apple that said, “The developer has removed the app from the store.” Epic pointed out that this was untrue and that Apple had removed the app. It’s a small point but one that shows how each side is angling to win the hearts and minds of players.
Even more absurd is Apple’s claim that Epic’s Sweeney asked for a special deal. Apple pointed to an email Sweeney sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook on June 30, apparently asking for a special deal.
According to Apple, “armed with the apparent view that Epic is too successful to play by the same rules as everyone else — and notwithstanding a public proclamation that Epic would ‘not accept special revenue sharing or payment terms just for ourselves,'” Sweeney asked for a side letter that would exempt Epic from the rules against enabling direct payments to a developer from app users. Apple said it rejected Epic’s request for a special deal, after which Epic resorted to its legal campaign.
But this point was easily fact-checked. Sweeney said in a tweet that in his email he specifically asked Apple to make the same conditions Epic was seeking available to all developers. In other words, Sweeney asked for a special deal for Epic and asked that all developers be given the same deal — consistent with his previous public claims.
Apple's statement is misleading. You can read my email in Apple's filing, which is publicly available. I specifically said in Epic's request to the Apple execs, "We hope that Apple will also make these options equally available to all iOS developers…" https://t.co/yRio08fPSy pic.twitter.com/HsqjApFQeo — Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 21, 2020 Interesting numbers In 2019, Epic Games reported $4.2 billion in revenue and $730 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA, a key measure of profitability), based on GamesBeat’s reporting. Apple reported $146.4 billion in iPhone sales and $20.5 billion in iPad sales, for a total of $166.9 billion, or 91% of Apple’s iOS-related revenue.
In January, Apple reported it had paid out $155 billion to developers since the launch of the App Store in 2008, with a quarter of that $155 billion, or $38.8 billion, paid in 2019. Assuming a 30/70 revenue split between Apple and the developers, this would imply revenues for Apple of $16.6 billion in 2019, or 4 times Epic’s revenue.
Apple argued that 84% of the 1.7 million apps on the App Store are free and Apple doesn’t collect any commissions from those apps except a nominal $99 annual fee. Apple has been taking a 30% cut from other apps since it introduced the App Store in 2009. But in 2016, Apple lowered its commission from 30% to 15% on subscriptions that renew after the first year.
Epic said its Epic Games Store has 160 million users, 200 developers, and 300 games. Over the past eight years, Epic has created 25 updates for Unreal Engine 4.
How big is Fortnite? Above: Fortnite’s holiday events couldn’t compare to its popularity during Christmas 2018.
Fortnite had 116 million registered iOS users — 63% of whom play only on iOS. Epic has seen its daily active users for iOS fall 60% since being cut off. All told, registered Fortnite users are above 350 million, and those users have played for 2.86 billion hours.
Travis Scott’s recent concert in Fortnite drew 27 million users, and 2 million of those were on iOS. Epic views this social side of Fortnite as leverage in creating the Metaverse and outdoing other social networks.
Epic Games told the court that of the new players who created an account on mobile between April 21 (when Fortnite became available on the Google Play store) and August 12 (the last full day before Fortnite was removed from Apple’s App Store), more than 61% created their accounts on iOS.
The legislative wild card All this legal wrangling is happening amid other controversies involving the tech giants. Apple has had to delay its move to retire its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) after opponents argued it would disrupt the mobile ecosystem in the name of improving privacy without replacing it with an alternative. And Congress hauled the CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon before a committee to question them about possible anticompetitive practices. If Congress or government agencies find that these companies violated antitrust laws, the results could prompt federal cases and Congress could make the current antitrust laws more stringent.
Whatever happens with Apple and Epic following these opening arguments, the dispute could take years to adjudicate in the courts.
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"RISC-V grows globally as an alternative to Arm and its license fees | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/11/risc-v-grows-globally-as-an-alternative-to-arm-and-its-license-fees"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages RISC-V grows globally as an alternative to Arm and its license fees Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn RISC-V co-creator Krste Asanovic at the RISC-V Summit.
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ARM is the most successful microprocessor architecture on the planet, with its licensees shipping billions of chips a year. But a rival has emerged in the past few years called RISC-V , a new kind of royalty-free architecture started by academics. Its proponents are holding an event in the heart of Silicon Valley to tout its growth.
This week, 2,000 engineers and other professionals are attending the RISC-V Summit in San Jose, California. The leaders of RISC-V made their case that the architecture — which enables members to design processors and other chips that are compatible with software designed for it — is moving well beyond its academic roots.
Cambridge, England-based Arm has been around for decades, and its designs are used in everything from smartphones to servers. Its customers have shipped more than 150 billion chips to date, and the pace is accelerating — the company is targeting 50 billion chips in the next two years. But some chip companies — and startups like SiFive — want more design freedom and lower license costs than Arm can provide.
RISC-V origins Above: RISV-V board members (left to right): Frans Sijstermans, Krste Asanovic, Rob Oshana, and David Patterson.
RISC-V started in 2010 at the University of California at Berkeley Par Lab Project, which needed an instruction set architecture that was simple, efficient, and extensible and had no constraints on sharing with others. So Krste Asanovic (a founder of SiFive), Andrew Waterman, Yunsup Lee, and David Patterson created RISC-V. They built their first chip in 2011. In 2014, they announced it and gave it to the community.
In an interview, Patterson (a former UC Berkeley computer science professor and current Google distinguished engineer) said the original motivation was to experiment more with chip design because Moore’s Law, the prediction that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every couple of years, was slowing down. If manufacturing advances could no longer deliver gains in chip productivity, chip designers would have to step up and deliver better results with clever chip designs that yield better chip performance, Patterson said.
The academic group was inspired by what Linux had achieved with open source software. But there was no equivalent in open source hardware. When the academics found they couldn’t get inexpensive licenses to proceed with their research, they decided to make their own architecture — the framework for whole families and generations of processors. They wanted to do for hardware what Linux did for software.
“This is what has happened in software. There are open and proprietary versions. There were times when people thought proprietary software was a monopoly,” said Patterson. “We had no choice. We had to use that. I think it’s healthy to have both. And it also puts kind of pressure on the proprietary competition. If there isn’t an alternative for them, then that probably stifles innovation, and it’s bad for the people in the ecosystem. So I think it’s healthier for the customers and probably healthier for the companies to have competition.” Patterson was a legendary figure in the microprocessor wars of the 1980s and 1990s. He was a co-inventor of RISC (reduced instruction set computing) and argued against CISC (complex instruction set computing). Companies like Arm, Sun Microsystems, and Mips (started by Patterson’s computer science textbook co-author and former Stanford University president John Hennessey) espoused RISC, while Intel focused on CISC. While Intel won the PC wars, RISC remains the winner thanks to Arm’s dominance in smartphones.
Now Patterson and his fellow Berkeley academics are engaged in a battle to unseat Arm.
Gaining momentum Above: The crowd at the second RISC-V Summit.
“We were always jealous in universities that you could get industrial-strength software that was open,” Patterson said. “But when it came to hardware, it was proprietary. Now, with RISC-V, we get the same kind of benefit. It helps educationally, and it helps competition.” Although they toyed with the idea for decades, the upstarts finally started the RISC-V Foundation as an independent nonprofit in 2015. It’s not an open source processor. It’s an open specification, and because it is open, members can create their own open source cores for processors.
In 2016, Nvidia announced it would use RISC-V as a controller in its graphics processing units (GPUs). Nvidia is now shipping millions of those chips. That said, in such chips RISC-V likely handles smaller tasks as an embedded control processor, while the device still uses an ARM design as a main processor. In 2017, Western Digital said it would move its entire product line to RISC-V, and it has open-sourced its cores. Last year, the group had its first summit, and this week the second summit is happening.
“The original specs have now been ratified, and here we are at the second summit,” Asanovic said in a keynote address. “It’s not because it’s 10% faster. It’s because it’s a new business model.” In the old days, chip designers had to pick the vendor to make their chip. With RISC-V, you can select it and then “all of the vendors compete for your business,” Asanovic said. “You can add your own extensions without getting permission.” In addition, chip juggernauts like Intel are finding it hard to maintain the pace of Moore’s Law through manufacturing advances alone. That is putting more pressure on designers to create application-specific processors to make up for the slowdown, Patterson said. But instruction-set owners such as Arm aren’t motivated to allow such customization because it can lead to fragmentation. Arm only recently moved to allow customization this year, long after RISC-V debuted.
Semico Research estimated that there will be 62.4 billion RISC-V cores shipping in 2025. It’s not just for microcontrollers, Asanovic said. There is demand for every performance level.
“Success is great, and it’s a great problem to have,” he said. “The ISA foundation is in place. This is basically taking over the industry.” What Arm thinks Above: The expo floor at the RISC-V Summit.
Arm is not impressed. “Arm represents more than just an instruction set architecture,” an Arm spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Arm offers a roadmap of products, supporting a broad range of applications and a proven track record of successfully enabling our partners to address the long-term needs of the market. Arm’s shared success model, combined with the world’s largest and open compute ecosystem of tools, services, and software, has resulted in our partners shipping more than 150 billion ARM-based chips to date on a path toward a trillion connected devices by 2035.” In October, I asked Arm CEO Simon Segars about RISC-V in an interview during Arm’s conference in the same convention center. At that time, Segars had just announced custom instructions, which seemed like a nod in the direction of the flexibility offered by RISC-V. He said the following: The way we’re looking at it is that chip design is evolving in multiple ways in parallel. You have consolidation going on amongst big chip companies, producing large players who are investing on the leading edge. They have the size and scale to build very complex devices. You have some OEMs who want to build chips. You have various smaller companies who are looking at how to create things much more optimized for specific applications, especially in this world of IoT. There’s a range of different solutions out there for how people can extend the capability of what an ARM processor does based on the workload.
Our inclusion of the custom instructions is based on feedback from the market. In some areas, having a dedicated accelerator sitting in the memory map or sitting as a co-processor, that works very well. There are some other applications where doing that final optimization can make a big difference. We’ve listened to the market. We’ve thought long and hard about how we add that flexibility and maintain the benefits we’ve had for our entire history of standardization and that big software ecosystem we’ve developed. This seems like a good way to address all those needs. It’s really driven by the needs of the market more than anything else.
The RISC-V Foundation’s leaders talked about being an alternative, but they also acknowledged that the competition with Arm isn’t as severe as it might seem. After all, many chips could have smaller RISC-V control processors coupled with ARM main processors, said Alessandro Piovaccari, chief technology officer of Silicon Labs, in an interview with VentureBeat.
“Arm is not our role model,” Asanovic said. “I would say that would be a disappointing ambition. It’s a much bigger deal than replacing one company.” Patterson added, “That would be like saying we’re going after Intel. Our high-end things will probably compete in the cloud with x86 in the cloud. But we’re not trying to destroy either company.” The RISC-V Foundation’s rapid growth Above: Calista Redmond, CEO of the RISC-V Foundation.
But if there is an opportunity, it’s in new markets for semiconductors, such as the burgeoning internet of things (IoT).
“You’ll see how many members have joined this revolution, and it’s a revolution,” said Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V Foundation, in an opening talk at the summit. “I’m signing about two membership agreements a day. In China, we are seeing hundreds joining. Welcome to the revolution. There has never been a better time to design a microprocessor.” Redmond said the group now has 435 companies in the RISC-V Foundation — 44 of those are chip companies, nine are input-output companies, 32 are research groups at universities, 25 are software companies, 31 are services firms, and the rest are from various industries. Commercial tool providers are supporting the group. In an interview with VentureBeat, Redmond said such growth hasn’t happened with other architectures in years.
And board members predict the group will grow its membership by 50% in 2020. By 2021, a billion cores are expected to ship using the RISC-V architecture, said Zvonimir Bandic, a foundation board member and senior tech director at Western Digital.
Europe and India have also hosted conferences. The Shakti Project in India has funded six processor design projects. And RISC-V has been designated the National Architecture of India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, a gathering drew 3,000 people. Meetups have drawn more than 2,000 people.
An event in Tokyo drew 360 registered attendees. In North America, companies shipping millions of cores include Nvidia, Western Digital, and SiFive. The foundation has the first version of its compliance framework ready, and it has working groups on security, safety, and other matters.
Concerns about China and trade barriers Above: RISC-V board members, (left to right): Krste Asanovic, Zvonimir Bandic, Ted Speers, Calista Redmond, Frans Sijstermans, and Rob Oshana.
China is one of the faster-growing markets, Asanovic said. In an interview, he said that RISC-V saw a burst of activity in China following controversy that forced Arm to decide whether to sever relations with China’s Huawei after the U.S. implemented a trade ban over national security concerns.
Ultimately, Arm decided it could continue to license its chip architectures to Huawei, as the technology originated in the United Kingdom, and not the U.S. The ban blocks U.S. companies from working with Huawei.
But there are no such concerns with the open source hardware that is the basis for RISC-V, Redmond said. Patterson said the CEO of Infineon once asked him if RISC-V technology could be blocked as a result of a hypothetical trade dispute. Because such concerns arose, the RISC-V Foundation is in the midst of moving its legal headquarters to Switzerland, which is considered a neutral territory. That helps remove any perception that RISC-V is a U.S.-based nonprofit. All of this concern about trade disputes has drawn a lot of attention to RISC-V, Asanovic said.
Partner views Above: Martin Fink shows off Western Digital’s latest RISC-V product.
Martin Fink, adviser to the CEO at Western Digital, said, “When we saw RISC-V, we saw an opportunity to accomplish things that would not be possible with other solutions in the market.” He said Western Digital’s end goal was to unshackle main memory from its processor. He said that Western Digital believed processors do not have to be directly connected to main memory chips.
It took Western Digital a few years to design its solution for a core using RISC-V. The company launched the Swerv core a year ago and open-sourced it.
“Before I joined Western Digital, I hadn’t heard of RISC-V,” he said. “I was frustrated with the same things. All of the interfaces associated with the processor were locked down. In 2017, we went all in. We are currently delivering a billion cores a year in our products, and we expect all of those to be RISC-V.” Ted Speers, head of architecture and planning at Microchip, said he first heard about RISC-V during a meeting in December 2014. He became a convert and convinced a colleague to believe in it. He said in five years RISC-V has provided an architectural alternative to innovate as Moore’s Law slows down. He also noted that there is a pipeline of talent coming into RISC-V through universities, and venture capital for RISC-V startups is starting to pour in, as well.
Microchip created an SoC FPGA dubbed PolarFire SoC with a hardened real-time, Linux capable, RISC-V-based microprocessor subsystem. Speers said RISC-V is “making hardware cool again” and added, “We are all excited because we know we are part of something big.” Junho Huh, research vice president at Samsung Electronics, said the company has designed RISC-V into its Exynos and Isocell chips so far. Previous Exynos modem chips have shipped in more than 600 million devices to date. It was a risk to use RISC-V, but the company expects to introduce RISC-V across a large number of products in the future, including AI, security, and safety chips, Huh said. Sure, it’s just a research executive saying that. But over time, that could result in a lot of new chips.
This potential has Redmond smiling. As she says, “The new chips are where the growth is in the market.” SiFive has the widest family of RISC-V cores on the market and has been evangelizing them around the world. Yunsup Lee, chief technology officer of SiFive, said he was struck by the concept at a SiFive symposium in Pakistan, where a student had printed out a copy of the first thesis written on RISC-V by Waterman. SiFive is moving into consumer IoT, deep learning, industrial IoT, and other markets.
Lee said, “We are changing the world. RISC-V has already changed it. Hardware is cool again for students.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"SiFive hires Qualcomm exec as CEO for RISC-V alternatives to Nvidia-Arm | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/17/sifive-hires-qualcomm-exec-as-ceo-for-risc-v-alternatives-to-nvidia-arm"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages SiFive hires Qualcomm exec as CEO for RISC-V alternatives to Nvidia-Arm Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn SiFive is making licensable RISC-V CPUs.
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SiFive has hired former Qualcomm executive Patrick Little as its new CEO. His job will be to help establish the company’s RISC-V processors as an alternative to Arm in the wake of Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of the world’s leading processor architecture.
SiFive designs processors that can be customized for whatever its customers need, for products ranging from the low end to the high end of the computing spectrum. The processors are based on RISC-V , a free and open architecture created by university researchers a decade ago. They were motivated by principles of “hardware freedom” to offer an alternative to royalty-based processors like those licensed for a fee and controlled by a single company. RISC-V is becoming a bigger deal now that Nvidia has agreed to acquire Arm , Little said in an interview with VentureBeat.
“It’s just very clear that the world is moving away from generic processors to workload-focused and optimized solutions,” Little said. “It’s a fantastic opportunity, and the timing here is phenomenal. The industry is transforming away from general-purpose computing to something domain-focused. With the news this week, it’s now accelerating, and the magnitude has really picked up. Now there are many companies saying it’s time to look at open versus closed solutions.” The CEOs of Nvidia and Arm have pledged to continue Arm’s open licensing strategy. But RISC-V can offer a better deal. The challenge is for it to build up its ecosystem of software, tools, and testing to make it a viable and universal alternative to Arm, which has about 95% of the smartphone market and whose licensees ship more than 22 billion chips a year.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Little succeeds Naveed Sherwani, who will step down from his role as president and CEO but continue to chair SiFive’s board. If the company plays its cards right, SiFive could become a key alternative to the superpowers of the chip industry. To take on this challenge, SiFive raised $61 million last month from investors that included chip superpowers Intel and Qualcomm. SiFive has raised $190 million to date.
Chip design is becoming increasingly important with the slowing of Moore’s Law, the prediction by Intel chair emeritus Gordon Moore that the density and performance of chips would double every couple of years. Little said design is how companies now differentiate themselves.
Above: Patrick Little is CEO of SiFive.
Little joins SiFive from Qualcomm, where he led an expansion into the automotive industry as senior vice president and general manager. He has over 30 years of operating experience in executive roles in the technology and semiconductor industries, including as CEO of eASIC, senior vice president of CSR Technology, and senior vice president at Xilinx.
SiFive’s portfolio of processor Core IP is based on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture and consists of four unique micro-architectures designed to enable different classes of performance, efficiency, and features for application and deeply embedded uses.
SiFive recently announced a collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center to create a new application programming interface (API) for popular compilers, further enabling applications to use the RISC-V Vector Extension currently under development for high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and computer vision applications. That’s an example of moving to the high end.
Little said customers are pushing the company further up the food chain, so designs that feature scalar and vector processing and high-performance optimization are taking up a lot of time.
“My job coming here is to unlock the opportunity for the company,” Little said. “We are moving from general-purpose processors to workload configurable processors. That’s a trajectory we’ve been on, and now it’s accelerating.” SiFive has about 500 employees, as well as 15 locations where it helps customers design their chips.
It’s the ecosystem, stupid Geopolitical issues could definitely give RISC-V a boost, as it is based in Switzerland, making it a neutral entity. Last year, Arm had to go through a complex legal process to figure out if it should license chips to China’s Huawei, which faced a ban from the U.S. Arm ultimately decided that as a U.K. company it was not subject to the U.S. restrictions. That equation has changed now that U.S.-based Nvidia will own Arm.
“RISC-V just offers the freedom in every dimension, and certainly geographical freedom,” Little said. “There is a gravitational move toward SiFive, and part of that has to do with global openness.” Arm’s advantage is that RISC-V’s ecosystem isn’t yet mature.
“We’ve had many customers go into production now with a complete toolchain and a complete environment,” Little said. “Now the RISC-V ecosystem is moving into broader markets, like mobile. The ecosystem is maturing very quickly.” The RISC-V organization is run by an industrywide body of supporters that includes SiFive. In fact, RISC-V’s founders are all working for SiFive in some fashion.
RISC-V International CEO Calista Redmond said in an email about the Nvidia-Arm deal, “The RISC-V ecosystem is made up of organizations across the silicon industry who have invested in multiple architectures. We anticipate that our member companies will continue to rely on legacy architectures for certain product lines, while also looking to RISC-V to meet the increasingly complex workload requirements of next-generation applications. RISC-V is free and open so no single entity controls the technology, meaning that everyone can help to shape this rapidly evolving frontier of computing.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"IDC: Smartphone shipments down 1.8% in Q2 2018, Huawei passes Apple for second place | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/31/idc-smartphone-shipments-down-1-8-in-q2-2018-huawei-passes-apple-for-second-place"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IDC: Smartphone shipments down 1.8% in Q2 2018, Huawei passes Apple for second place Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei campus in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
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For the first time in seven years, Samsung and Apple have not taken the top two positions in the worldwide smartphone market. All hail Huawei. Although Samsung held onto first place — the South Korean giant typically dominates the first three quarters of the year, with the U.S. company winning the fourth quarter — Huawei passed Apple for second place this past quarter.
Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 348.2 million smartphones worldwide in Q2 2018, down 1.8 percent from the 348.2 million units in Q2 2017. Of the top five (Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, and Oppo), only Samsung shipped fewer units than the year before. The Q2 2018 figures come from IDC (though Canalys and Strategy Analytics both agree that Huawei passed Apple in the quarter), which summarized its findings in the following chart: As you can see above, Samsung lost 2.0 percentage points (from 22.9 percent to 20.9 percent) as it shipped 8.3 million fewer smartphones (71.5 million). Samsung typically owns about a fifth of the market, and that remains unchanged. The Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ simply did not deliver.
Samsung blamed the slowdown on intensified competition at the high end and an overall sluggish smartphone market. All eyes are now on the Galaxy Note9, to be announced on August 9.
Huawei gained a whopping 4.8 points, hitting a new high of 15.8 percent market share. Passing Apple required quite the jump. Huawei is still closer to Apple than it is to Samsung, but if it can keep the momentum going, the Chinese company will have successfully dismantled the duopoly held by its two biggest competitors. Huawei’s P20/P20 Pro series found strong demand, as did Honor models sold via online channels.
Apple’s share, meanwhile, grew 0.3 points (from 11.8 percent to 12.1 percent), thanks to slight iPhone gains.
The iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus , and iPhone X are chugging along, as well, with Apple specifically noting that the iPhone X was the top seller.
The expected launch of three next-generation iPhone models this fall could help the company reclaim second place.
Xiaomi jumped 2.9 points (to 9.3 percent) and Oppo gained 0.6 points (to 8.6 percent). Huawei has a bigger lead over Apple than Apple has over Xiaomi, which was unfathomable just a few quarters ago.
Companies outside of the top five together lost 6.9 points. The top five leaders are increasingly dominating, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they all soon held double-digit shares of the pie. Consumers no longer seem to be as obsessed with upgrading to the latest and greatest, but when they do, they’re increasingly considering the Chinese trio instead of the de facto Samsung or Apple options.
“Globally, as well as in China, a key bellwether, smartphone consumers are trading up to more premium devices, but there are no longer as many new smartphone converts, resulting in shipments dropping,” IDC associate research director Melissa Chau said in a statement. “When we look at it from a dollar value perspective, the smartphone market is still climbing and will continue to grow over the years to come as consumers are increasingly reliant on these devices for the bulk of their computing needs.” “The continued growth of Huawei is impressive, to say the least, as is its ability to move into markets where, until recently, the brand was largely unknown,” IDC program vice president Ryan Reith said in a statement. “It is worth noting that Apple moved into the top position each of the last two holiday quarters following its product refresh, so it’s likely we’ll see continued movement among the top-ranked companies in 2018 and beyond. For most markets, the ultra-high end ($700+) competition is largely some combination of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, depending on the geography, and this is unlikely to change much in the short term. At the same time, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are all slowly pushing their customer base upstream at a price tier slightly lower than the top three. This is an area they should all watch closely, as the builds in this segment are getting increasingly more advanced.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"IDC: Smartphone shipments down 6% in Q3 2018, Huawei maintains lead over Apple | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/01/idc-smartphone-shipments-down-6-in-q3-2018-huawei-maintains-lead-over-apple"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IDC: Smartphone shipments down 6% in Q3 2018, Huawei maintains lead over Apple Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei campus in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
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It wasn’t just a blip.
For the first time in seven years, Samsung and Apple were not the top two smartphone makers — Huawei overtook Apple in Q2 2018.
And today we learned that the Chinese company beat its U.S counterpart again, in Q3 2018.
Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 355.2 million smartphones worldwide in Q3 2018, down 6 percent from the 377.8 million units in Q3 2017. Of the top five, only Samsung and Oppo shipped fewer units than the year before. The Q3 2018 figures come from IDC (though Strategy Analytics agrees that Huawei maintained its lead over Apple), which summarized its findings in the following chart: As you can see above, Samsung lost 1.8 percentage points (from 22.1 percent to 20.3 percent) as it shipped 11.1 million fewer smartphones (72.2 million). Samsung typically owns about a fifth of the market, and that remains unchanged. It looks like the Galaxy Note9 was not able to make up the ground lost by Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ , but more importantly, Samsung is losing at the mid-range and low-end.
Huawei gained a whopping 4.2 points, hitting 14.6 percent market share. If you’re going to stay above Apple, you need the volume. Huawei is still closer to Apple than it is to Samsung, but if it can keep the momentum going, the Chinese company will have successfully dismantled the duopoly held by its two biggest competitors. Huawei’s P20 and P20 Pro continue to find strong demand, as do its Honor models sold via online channels. All eyes are now on the newly released Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro.
Apple’s share, meanwhile, grew 0.8 points (from 12.4 percent to 13.2 percent), thanks to the iPhone XS.
The iPhone XR , which only arrived in Q4, is also expected to sell well.
Xiaomi jumped 2.2 points (to 9.7 percent), while Oppo gained 0.3 points (to 8.4 percent). Those two are battling it out for fourth just as closely as Apple and Huawei now are for second.
Companies outside of the top five together lost 5.8 points. The top five leaders are increasingly dominating, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they all soon held double-digit shares of the pie. Consumers no longer seem to be as obsessed with upgrading to the latest and greatest, but when they do, they’re increasingly considering the Chinese trio instead of the de facto Samsung or Apple options.
Next quarter could be particularly interesting. Samsung typically dominates the first three quarters of the year, while Apple wins the fourth quarter. Will Q4 2018 follow the usual order (Apple, Samsung, Huawei) or will we see another shakeup? And, more importantly, what will the overall numbers show for the full year? “The race at the top of the market continues to be a heated one, as Huawei once again slipped past Apple to the second position,” IDC research manager Anthony Scarsella said in a statement. “Although Huawei may have beat out Apple in Q3, the holiday quarter could have Apple as the market leader, thanks to the launch of three new bezel-less devices. No matter who leads in the overall market, the holiday quarter should be an exciting one with a wide selection of new flagship devices available. With the new iPhones, Mate 20, Pixel 3, V40, Note 9, and OnePlus 6T, we can expect consumers will have a plethora of options when upgrade time approaches. The vast selection of high-priced handsets should move ASPs in a positive direction come next quarter.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,105 | 2,019 |
"IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 4.9% in Q4 2018, Apple regains second from Huawei | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/30/idc-global-smartphone-shipments-declined-4-9-percent-in-q4-2018"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 4.9% in Q4 2018, Apple regains second from Huawei Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn iPhone XR Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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The smartphone market isn’t looking too hot. In a report published today, research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said that 375.4 million devices shipped to customers during the fourth quarter of 2018, down 4.9 percent from Q4 2017’s peak — marking the fifth consecutive quarter of decline and closing out the worst year ever for smartphone shipments. Global shipments in 2018 dipped 4.1 percent, with a total of 1.4 billion units shipped for the full year.
China experienced the worst of the slump. The country, which accounts for an estimated 30 percent of the world’s smartphone consumption, reported a decline in shipment volume of 10 percent. IDC blames high inventory and an overall decrease in consumer spending.
Samsung — the top smartphone vendor by volume — ended the holiday quarter with 70.4 million total shipments, a 5.5 percent decline from the 74.5 million it shipped globally in Q4 2017. (It drove the Seoul company’s market share below 20 percent to 18.7 percent, and 2018 shipment volume down 8 percent from 317.7 million units to 292.3 million.) Meanwhile, Apple, which ranks second in the world by volume, saw the volume of iPhone shipments dive 11.5 percent, with total volume dipping 3.2 percent to 208.8 million units from 215.8 million for the full year.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Globally the smartphone market is a mess right now,” Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers team, said. “Outside of a handful of high-growth markets like India, Indonesia, Korea, and Vietnam, we did not see a lot of positive activity in 2018. We believe several factors are at play here, including lengthening replacement cycles, increasing penetration levels in many large markets, political and economic uncertainty, and growing consumer frustration around continuously rising price points.” Despite the bad news, a few winners emerged from the wreckage. The top four smartphone brands in China — Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi — grew their share of the market to 78 percent, up from 66 percent a year prior. Huawei’s shipment volume was up 43.9 percent year-over-year (from 42.1 million units shipped to 60.5 million) and up 33.6 percent for 2018 (154.2 million devices to 206 million), while Oppo saw full-year growth of 1.3 percent to 113.1 million units shipped (from 111.7 million). Xiaomi, not to be outdone, notched a 32.2 percent increase in shipments for 2018, with volume surpassing 100 million (92.7 million units to 122.6 million).
And globally, the top five smartphone companies — that is, Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi — consolidated their strength: Their collective shipment volume grew to 69 percent from 63 percent.
IDC’s report follows a similarly gloomy one from Canalys this week. Analysts there estimate that shipments in China last year fell to their lowest level since 2013 — 396 million units — and that fourth-quarter sales alone dropped 15 percent year-on-year. It’s the seventh consecutive quarter of decline, and comes after a 4 percent overall decline in 2017. It mirrored findings from China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a research institute under the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which said in January that shipments dipped 15.5 percent to roughly 390 million units for the year, and even more steeply in December.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. In contrast to China, the Indian market saw extraordinary growth in 2018, with research firm Counterpoint reporting last week that 145.2 million smartphone units shipped in 2018 — a 10 percent year-over-year growth over the 132 million units that shipped in 2017.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,106 | 2,019 |
"IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 6.6% in Q1 2019, Huawei overtakes Apple again | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/30/idc-smartphone-shipments-q1-2019"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 6.6% in Q1 2019, Huawei overtakes Apple again Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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The battle for second rages on.
While Samsung held the top smartphone spot all four quarters last year, Huawei overtook Apple in Q2 2018 smartphone shipments , marking the first time in seven years that Samsung and Apple were not the top two smartphone makers.
Huawei maintained second place in Q3 2018 , but Apple regained its silver spot in Q4 2018.
Today we learned that the Chinese company beat its U.S counterpart again, in Q1 2019.
Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 310.8 million smartphones worldwide in Q1 2019, down 6.6% from the 332.7 million units in Q1 2018. Of the top five, only Huawei and Vivo shipped more units than the year before. The Q1 2019 figures come from IDC (though Strategy Analytics agrees that Huawei passed Apple again), which summarized its findings in the following chart: Samsung, Huawei, and Apple As you can see above, Samsung lost 0.4 points (from 23.5% to 23.1%) as it shipped 6.3 million fewer smartphones (71.9 million). Samsung typically owns about a fifth of the market, and that remains unchanged. It looks like the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ did well during the quarter, but Samsung is losing at the mid-range and low end of the market. The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G is not going to be able to help much there.
Huawei gained a whopping 7.2 points, hitting 19.0% market share. That’s the biggest lead it has held above Apple, and also the closest it has come to unseating Samsung — it’s now closer to its Korean competitor than its American counterpart. The Chinese company is successfully dismantling the smartphone duopoly. And that’s even before the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro have a full quarter of shipments to show off. Huawei’s high-end devices continue to find strong demand, as do its Honor models sold via online channels. In China especially, Huawei has a well-rounded portfolio targeting all segments.
Apple’s share, meanwhile, fell 4.0 points (from 15.7% to 11.7%), as the company shifts its focus to services.
Competitors continue to eat away at Apple’s market share, and given that the company doesn’t have a 5G strategy , that’s unlikely to change this year. Apple’s settlement with Qualcomm could, however, turn its smartphone strategy around for 2020.
Chinese domination Xiaomi slipped 0.4 points (to 8.0%), Vivo grew 1.9 points (to 7.5%), and Oppo stayed flat (at 7.4%). These three are battling it out for fourth even more closely than the top three are fighting for the top spot. Companies outside of the “top five” together lost 4.4 points.
Consumers are no longer as obsessed with upgrading to the latest and greatest smartphone. But when they do, or when first-time buyers join, they’re increasingly considering a Chinese company over the usual Samsung or Apple options.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that Huawei is laser-focused on growing its stature in the world of mobile devices, with smartphones being its lead horse,” IDC program vice president Ryan Reith said in a statement. “The overall smartphone market continues to be challenged in almost all areas, yet Huawei was able to grow shipments by 50%, not only signifying a clear number two in terms of market share but also closing the gap on the market leader Samsung. This new ranking of Samsung, Huawei, and Apple is very likely what we’ll see when 2019 is all said and done.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,107 | 2,019 |
"U.S. adds Huawei and affiliates to trade blacklist | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/16/u-s-adds-huawei-and-affiliates-to-trade-blacklist"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages U.S. adds Huawei and affiliates to trade blacklist Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The logo of Huawei Technologies is pictured in front of the German headquarters of the Chinese telecommunications giant in Duesseldorf, Germany, February 18, 2019.
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( Reuters ) — The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it is adding Huawei Technologies and 70 affiliates to its so-called “Entity List” — a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval.
U.S. officials told Reuters the decision would also make it difficult if not impossible for Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world, to sell some products because of its reliance on U.S. suppliers.
Under the order that will take effect in the coming days, Huawei will need a U.S. government license to buy American technology. Huawei did not immediately comment.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement President Donald Trump backed the decision that will “prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The dramatic move comes as the Trump administration has aggressively lobbied other countries not to use Huawei equipment in next-generation 5G networks and comes just days after the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods amid an escalating trade war.
The Commerce Department said the move comes after the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment in January of Huawei and some entities that said the company had conspired to provide prohibited financial services to Iran. The department said it has a reasonable basis to conclude that Huawei is “engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest.” Huawei reported first-quarter revenue of $27 billion last month and said it had shipped 59 million smartphones in the first quarter.
In March 2016, the Commerce Department added ZTE Corp to the entity list over allegations it organized an elaborate scheme to hide its re-export of U.S. items to sanctioned countries in violation of U.S. law.
The restrictions prevented suppliers from providing ZTE with U.S. equipment, potentially freezing the Huawei rival’s supply chain, but they were short-lived. The U.S. suspended the restrictions in a series of temporary reprieves, allowing the company to maintain ties to U.S. suppliers until it agreed to a plea deal a year later.
In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and ZTE.
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican, said “Huawei’s supply chain depends on contracts with American companies” and he urged the Commerce Department to look “at how we can effectively disrupt our adversary.” ( Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Chris Reese ) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,108 | 2,019 |
"Google's Huawei restrictions are a wake-up call for all Android phone makers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/20/googles-huawei-restrictions-are-a-wake-up-call-for-all-android-phone-makers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Google’s Huawei restrictions are a wake-up call for all Android phone makers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei @ MWC 2019 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Huawei’s fortunes have gone from bad to worse, as news emerged last night that Google will stop providing the company with support for Android and Google services. The move was made in response to a U.S. order restricting companies’ ability to trade with Huawei due to security concerns.
The upshot of this is that Huawei won’t be able to use Google’s brand of Android on future devices, limiting the Chinese company to the basic open source Android.
The impact on existing Huawei handset owners should be minimal, as they will still be able to access Google Play services and apps; however, the move could have big ramifications for the future of Huawei’s consumer business.
“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” Google said in a statement. “For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.” The U.S. has over the past 18 months been stepping up its push against Huawei, which so far has included preventing carriers from selling its mobile devices and lobbying allies to join in banning Huawei’s networking equipment. Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department added Huawei and 70 affiliates to an “entity list” — essentially a trade blacklist.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! While this means Huawei will be limited in terms of buying crucial hardware components from the likes of Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom (and possibly chipmakers elsewhere , according to some reports), news that Google will restrict core Android services and features is arguably more notable, given the immediate ramifications this has for Huawei and its sub-brand Honor. Indeed, Huawei is gearing up to launch its latest flagship Honor devices tomorrow, and although the phones are already Google-certified and therefore won’t be directly impacted, consumers may think twice before shelling out $600 for a brand with an uncertain future. Moreover, Huawei will probably lose early access to future Android version updates, which could mean a longer delay for customers waiting for new Android features.
In a statement issued to VentureBeat, a Huawei spokesperson sought to reassure customers of the company’s intention to continue supporting all “existing” smartphones and tablets. The statement didn’t mention future devices, though.
Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world. As one of Android’s key global partners, we have worked closely with their open source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefited both users and the industry.
Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally.
We will continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem, in order to provide the best experience for all users globally.
Wake-up call Though Huawei phones aren’t officially available to buy in the U.S., this restriction hasn’t hampered their growth elsewhere. The company claimed smartphone shipments jumped by a third in 2018 to over 200 million units, and it could soon usurp Samsung as the world’s biggest mobile phone maker. But make no mistake: Google limiting Android on Huawei devices is a major development, one that could send the smartphone industry in a number of fragmented directions.
Huawei gave no indication of how it plans to circumvent the Android obstacle for future devices, but the reality is that it may have to start building its own “forked” version of Android for international markets, similar to what Amazon ships with its Fire tablets. This will mean making its own app store — AppGallery — the default option on Huawei devices, which may lose access to popular Google apps, such as Maps, YouTube, Gmail, and more. Indeed, Huawei’s big challenge moving forward will be continuing its global growth without relying on Google.
But perhaps the most important thing in all of this is that the decision doesn’t bode well for other Chinese smartphone makers that rely on Google’s flavor of Android to sell phones. For now, the ban is limited to Huawei, but any number of future scenarios could lead the U.S. to target other smartphone makers — regardless of whether they develop networking infrastructure or not.
Huawei’s situation should serve as a general wake-up call. Don’t be surprised if this latest development leads to a shift away from Google Play Services to a system and infrastructure that phone makers themselves control. That won’t be easy to pull off, however, as consumers have come to rely on Google’s services.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,109 | 2,019 |
"IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 2.3% in Q2 2019, Huawei beats Apple again | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/31/idc-smartphone-shipments-q2-2019"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 2.3% in Q2 2019, Huawei beats Apple again Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Huawei has now beaten Apple in smartphone shipments for four out of the last five quarters.
In Q2 2018, Huawei overtook Apple , marking the first time in seven years that Samsung and Apple were not the top two smartphone makers.
Huawei maintained second place in Q3 2018 , Apple regained its silver spot in Q4 2018 , and Huawei won again in Q1 2019.
Today we learned that the Chinese company beat its U.S. counterpart again, in Q2 2019. (Samsung has held the top spot throughout.) Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 333.2 million smartphones worldwide in Q2 2019, down 2.3% from the 341.2 million units in Q2 2018. Of the top five, Samsung, Huawei, and Oppo shipped more units than the year before. The Q2 2019 figures come from IDC (though Strategy Analytics agrees that Huawei passed Apple again), which summarized its findings in the following chart: Samsung, Huawei, and Apple As you can see above, Samsung gained 1.7 points (from 21.0% to 22.7%) as it shipped 4.0 million more smartphones (75.5 million). Samsung typically owns about a fifth of the market, and that remains unchanged. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ did well, but because consumers are holding onto devices longer and opting for less expensive options, not well enough. Samsung’s A-series devices were able to pick up the slack.
Huawei gained 1.7 points, hitting 17.6% market share. The Chinese company once again increased the gap above Apple and closed in on Samsung — for the second quarter in a row it is closer to its Korean competitor than its American counterpart. Huawei is successfully dismantling the smartphone duopoly. Despite trade tensions, shipments were up by 4.5 million (though down 0.6% when compared to Q1 2019). The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro did well. Huawei’s high-end devices continue to find strong demand, as do its Honor models sold via online channels. In China especially, Huawei has a well-rounded portfolio targeting all segments.
Apple’s share, meanwhile, fell 2.0 points (from 12.1% to 10.1%), the lowest it has been since the year the iPhone debuted. Shipments were down by 7.5 million units (to 33.8 million) as wearables and services made up for the iPhone.
Competitors continue to eat away at Apple’s market share, and the company is moving too slowly on 5G , which is unlikely to change this year.
Chinese domination Xiaomi gained 0.2 points (to 9.7%), Oppo grew 0.3 points (to 8.9%), and Vivo was sixth, though IDC didn’t provide figures for the company. Xiaomi is incredibly close to passing Apple, but only in this quarter. Companies outside of the top five together lost 1.9 points.
Consumers are no longer as obsessed with upgrading to the latest and greatest smartphone. But when they do, or when first-time buyers join, they’re increasingly considering a Chinese company over Samsung or Apple.
“Despite a lot of uncertainty surrounding Huawei the company managed to hold its position at number two in terms of market share,” IDC program vice president Ryan Reith said in a statement. “When you look at the top of the market — Samsung, Huawei, and Apple — each vendor lost a bit of share from last quarter, and when you look down the list the next three — Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo — all gained. Part of this is related to the timing of product launches, but it is hard not to assume this trend could continue.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"ProBeat: The TikTok acquisition is not going to happen | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/11/probeat-the-tiktok-acquisition-is-not-going-to-happen"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opinion ProBeat: The TikTok acquisition is not going to happen Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands at a November 9, 2017 press conference following their meeting outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
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When I wrote about the forced TikTok acquisition last month, I spelled out what everyone wants.
The Trump administration wants trouble for TikTok (and China), Microsoft wants TikTok’s data (and algorithm), and parent company ByteDance wants to be in charge of its own destiny (and revenues). Oracle has since waded in as a potential acquirer ( which makes even less sense than Microsoft as the buyer ) and China is starting to throw its weight around. Plenty has happened, and yet we’re no closer to a resolution before U.S. President Donald Trump’s September 15 sell-by deadline. A month ago, I didn’t think Microsoft would acquire TikTok. Now I don’t think we’ll see a TikTok acquisition at all. (Update on September 13: ByteDance has rejected Microsoft’s bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations.) I’m not saying this because CNBC reported a deal would be announced last week and then nothing happened. Nor am I reading too much into this week’s reports: The Wall Street Journal says ByteDance is talking with the Trump administration about avoiding a sale of its U.S. TikTok operations, while Bloomberg says ByteDance is probably going to miss the deadline. (Update at 10:50 a.m. Pacific: Reuters says China prefers TikTok shutting down in the U.S. instead of a forced sale.) To me, all of these reports merely indicate that the reasons against a deal keep mounting. Meanwhile, the arguments for a deal were never there to begin with — they were artificially imposed. Putting aside the fact that forcing foreign businesses to sell their most prized possession is inherently problematic, here are the obstacles discouraging a TikTok acquisition.
Trump This whole brouhaha began when Trump gave Microsoft 45 days to seal a TikTok deal. That is an inadequate amount of time for any U.S. company to pull off an acquisition that was never on the table in their wildest dreams, let alone one as complicated as that of a social app owned by a Chinese company with users around the world. Such pressure certainly gets potential parties talking, but it also makes them less likely to address all the dirty details that in normal circumstances take months to hammer out.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Next, Trump wants a cut of TikTok’s sale price. Ignoring the dangerous precedent such a demand sets, whose pocket is that slice going to come out of? Neither party has reason to pay what amounts to “key money” — in Trump’s own words — an illegal real estate finder’s fee. The demand only makes a deal less appealing.
TikTok Adding more friction, TikTok is suing the Trump administration over his executive order that bans U.S. transactions with TikTok starting on September 20. What will the courts say about that — and will they say it in the next week? If the courts don’t make a move, TikTok clones that are stealing its users will soon be stealing its U.S. revenues, making the app even less attractive to potential buyers.
Complicating matters further, all the acquisition talks have been focused on TikTok’s North American, Australian, and New Zealand operations. That means a potential acquirer isn’t getting the whole app, nor all its users and data. TikTok wouldn’t just be separated from ByteDance, but also from TikTok’s other regions, adding to the long list of technical challenges such a deal would entail.
Speaking of which, nobody can articulate exactly how TikTok’s data would be moved from ByteDance to a new parent company. TikTok applies machine learning to that data to determine which videos you are most likely to engage with, so it can serve you more similar content or content that people with similar preferences like. But it’s not clear whether TikTok’s AI algorithm — the real value of a potential deal — would come along for the ride.
Xi Not coincidentally, China added AI tech to its export control list late last month, including “personalized content recommendations based on data analysis.” Translation: TikTok’s AI algorithm is not for sale. In case the message didn’t hit home, China’s state media quoted a government advisor saying ByteDance should study the new export list and “seriously and cautiously” consider halting deal negotiations. This is just another battle in the AI arms race, in which the U.S. is ahead and China is closing in.
The U.S. has a problematic deadline and finder’s fee, the lawsuit and technical challenges aren’t helping, and China wants to deny any sort of acquisition that involves TikTok’s most valuable asset.
Furthermore, China’s President Xi Jinping can and will play the long game. While Trump is constrained by a pesky problem known as the U.S. Constitution (Amendment XXII limits the office of the president to two terms), Xi abolished presidential term limits in 2018.
I, like everyone else, have no idea what will ultimately happen. Trump could save face by announcing that a deal has been reached, with no follow-up forthcoming. (He’s certainly made tech announcements that weren’t his to make before.) Or ByteDance could attempt to appease Trump by announcing some sort of “deal” and then dragging its feet until an alternative is reached. That would fit neatly into Xi’s playbook.
What I can say is that with each passing day, “the TikTok acquisition” looks less and less like a done deal.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
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"Apple debuts iPhone 12 family, focusing on 5G and 5nm chips | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/13/apple-debuts-iphone-12-family-focusing-on-5g-and-5nm-chips"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple debuts iPhone 12 family, focusing on 5G and 5nm chips Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
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Though every new iPhone goes through years of design and testing before release, the iPhone 12 family has had one of the most public development processes in history — a result of Apple’s mid-cycle switch of cellular modem suppliers. Today, the company is officially revealing its most advanced smartphones yet, featuring redesigned bodies, the world’s first 5-nanometer processors, and 5G capabilities that will finally put iPhone cellular connectivity on par with numerous Android rivals. As the top-selling smartphones in the United States, as well as many countries throughout the world, the new devices are expected to kick off mass adoption of both 5G and 5nm chip technologies.
Following new naming conventions introduced last year, Apple is distinguishing midrange iPhone 12 devices from higher-end iPhone 12 Pro versions, using a combination of higher-end materials and cameras to set the otherwise similar phones apart from one another. This year, there are two screen sizes for each iPhone tier, overlapping in the center, such that a 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini and 6.1-inch iPhone 12 use aluminum frames, while a 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro and 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max have stainless steel cores.
The “standard” 6.1-inch iPhone 12 includes an OLED screen with a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1,200 nits of brightness, and 460 PPI pixel density, covered by a new Corning-developed Ceramic Shield screen glass that promises enhanced toughness against damage — more than any smartphone glass, with four times the prior resilience to drops. A smaller iPhone 12 mini has all the same features as the iPhone 12, but with the aforementioned 5.4-inch screen and a physically smaller form factor — a design that Apple claims is the smallest, thinnest 5G smartphone in the world.
Oddly, Apple is playing pricing games with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12, which were marketed as priced at $699 and $799, respectively. But small print on the company’s website reveals that those numbers are based on “special offers” from Verizon and AT&T, while T-Mobile, Sprint, and unlocked carrier models are $30 more expensive. That means the actual prices are $729 and $829, respectively.
Apple also announced the $999 iPhone 12 Pro and $1,099 iPhone 12 Pro Max, bringing larger displays into form factors similar to the iPhone 11 Pro. Like the standard iPhone 12 models, the Pro displays boast 2,000,000:1 contrast ratios and 1,200 nits of brightness, but add a surgical stainless steel housing that promises IP68 water resistance to depths of six meters. The iPhone 12 Pro and Max now start at 128GB of storage capacity, versus the iPhone 12 and mini models at 64GB, and there’s no price difference between carriers.
All of the models continue to use Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector for wired charging, but also support universal Qi wireless charging, plus a revived Apple power solution called MagSafe — magnetic inductive charging at 15 watt speeds, twice the peak of prior iPhones’ Qi support. MagSafe Chargers will sell separately for $39 rather than coming in the box, and will work with $49 cases. Wired accessories are changing a bit, too: Apple is removing USB wall chargers and EarPods headphones from the new iPhones’ boxes, ostensibly for environmental reasons, but will include USB-C to Lightning cables with all four models.
On the 5G front, Apple is including support for low, mid, and high 5G bands in the U.S. version of the iPhone 12, while leaving out high band (millimeter wave) support in international models. Regardless of the territory where the phone is used, the iPhone 12 includes a Smart Data Mode that can automatically toggle between 4G and 5G networks to improve battery performance. Under ideal conditions tested internationally using low and mid band (sub-6GHz) networks, Apple says, the peak speed iPhone 12 has achieved is 3.5Gbps, while in the U.S., the top millimeter wave speed is 4Gbps, with an average of 1Gbps.
The iPhone 12 uses brand new Apple A14 Bionic processors , the first system-on-chip designs using TSMC’s bleeding-edge 5nm fabrication process. Chips fabricated at 5nm scale can be smaller and more power efficient than prior-generation 7nm processors, or pack more transistors into the same area for greater computing power at the same level of power consumption. The A14 includes 11.8 billion transistors, and while Apple notes that it’s up to 50% faster than any other smartphone chip in CPU and GPU performance, it’s also 20-27% faster in CPU performance , and up to 72% faster in graphics performance than last year’s A13 Bionic.
In the AI department, Apple is promising 11 TOPS — 11 trillion operations per second — which should bump machine learning functions by 70-80% relative to the prior chip.
While preserving the two-camera (ultra-wide and regular) design of the iPhone 11, the iPhone 12’s rear cameras have been bumped to f/1.6 apertures and optically upgraded for superior low-light performance. The Pro variants each add a zoom lens, but they differ by size: Though the iPhone 12 Pro has a 52mm-equivalent 2x optical zoom lens, the Pro Max includes a 65mm-equivalent 2.5x optical zoom, giving customers a reason besides screen size to prefer the most expensive model. Imaging sensor size improvements in the Pro models enable their pixels to gather more light than last year’s models, as well: 87% more than before, accompanied by DSLR-style sensor-shifting optical image stabilization technology.
Using computational photography, Night Mode has been upgraded to work across each iPhone 12 model’s front and rear cameras. A new Night Mode Time-lapse feature has been added for use when the phone is mounted on a tripod. On the Pro phones, Apple is introducing Apple ProRAW as a new format that combines a RAW image format with the benefits of multiple near-simultaneous exposures, so photographers can go back and tweak the levels of images after they were exposed. A new 10-bit HDR video recording mode is also being introduced, including support for 4K/60 frame per second Dolby Vision HDR. While Qualcomm showed Snapdragon CPUs with this ability last December, Apple claims the iPhone 12 Pro will have the first smartphone cameras with this feature, and also be the first to be able to actually edit Dolby Vision HDR videos directly from the phone.
Apple also confirmed that the iPhone 12 Pro models will include Lidar scanners. They’ll be used not only for room scanning and AR applications, but also to enable faster autofocus in videos and photos, improving the speed of low light autofocus by six times.
The notorious screen notch introduced in the iPhone X appears for the fourth consecutive time in the iPhone 12 family, holding a traditional “selfie” camera and front-facing depth sensor for facial authentication, as well as an ear speaker. Apple’s rivals have used less visually intrusive designs such as a punched camera hole or a pop-up camera, while tests continue on under-screen cameras that don’t need to be visible at all times.
Like the iPhone 11 family, Apple is offering the phones in different colors, separately distinguishing each family by glass finishes. As leaked prior to the event by Evan Blass , the standard iPhone 12 series comes in five tones including black, white, navy blue, an orange-tinted red, and aqua green, each with a glossy glass back, while the iPhone 12 Pro comes in “bright gold,” silver, space gray-replacing graphite, and Pacific Blue finishes with matte glass backs. The basic premise of each design is similar to the iPhone 11 in sandwiching a metal frame between panes of glass, but this year’s frames return to the classic flat edges Apple introduced in the iPhone 4, with corner radiuses similar to the last two iPad Pro models.
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro will be available for preorder on October 16 and ship on October 23. The iPhone 12 mini and Pro Max will go up for preorder on November 6 and ship starting on November 13.
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"Apple reports record $64.7 billion revenue in Q4 2020 despite iPhone delay | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/apple-reports-record-64-7-billion-revenue-in-q4-2020-despite-iphone-delay"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple reports record $64.7 billion revenue in Q4 2020 despite iPhone delay Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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While 2020 won’t be remembered fondly in the history books, it has been quite good for Apple , which is ending its fiscal 2020 with record revenues for three of its four quarters. Today, Apple announced record fourth quarter revenues of $64.7 billion. Apple once again cited strength in its growing services business, along with an all-time record for Mac sales, offset by the atypical absence of first weekend iPhone sales to buoy the numbers.
On average, analysts expected Apple’s revenues to be $63.7 billion, a drop of 0.5% from the year-ago quarter , when the company reached a record $64.04 billion in sales despite falling iPhone and Mac earnings. At that point, the company reported accelerated growth in services, as well as healthy sales of iPads and wearables. But Apple beat the predictions by a billion dollars — a 1% increase over the prior year, with earnings per diluted share of $0.73.
Apple says it sold $26.444 billion in iPhones, $9.032 billion in Macs, and $6.797 billion in iPads during the quarter, with combined “wearables, home, and accessories” sales of $7.876 billion and services at $14.549 billion. That’s up across most categories from the year-ago quarter, when Macs were at $6.991 billion, iPads at $4.656 billion, wearables at $6.52 billion, and services at $12.511 billion. But it was a sharp drop for iPhones, from $33.362 billion in the same quarter last year, due to COVID-19-related shipping delays.
“Despite the ongoing impacts of COVID-19,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “Apple is in the midst of our most prolific product introduction period ever, and the early response to all our new products, led by our first 5G-enabled iPhone lineup, has been tremendously positive.” Initial sales of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro began in mid-October, with additional mini and Pro Max models scheduled to hit stores in mid-November, so their sales will boost the company’s first 2021 fiscal quarter revenues.
Geographically, Apple’s net sales grew year-over-year from $29.322 billion to $30.698 billion in the Americas, $14.946 billion to $16.9 billion in Europe, $4.982 billion to $5.023 billion in Japan, and $3.656 billion to $4.131 billion in the Asia Pacific region. But they fell sharply in Greater China from $11.134 billion to $7.946 billion, again likely reflecting the delayed arrival of new iPhones in one of their most popular international territories. International sales constituted 59% of the quarter’s revenue, down only slightly from 60% a year earlier.
Apple had a quietly busy fourth fiscal quarter, using a largely remote workforce to finish new mobile operating systems unveiled at an all-digital Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The company also launched new Apple Watches and iPads in September and revealed a new Fitness+ interactive service that relies on the Watch for workout tracking and either Apple TVs, iPads, or iPhones for video playback. Both Fitness+ and Apple One, a bundle of Apple services, will launch during this quarter. Apple is also expected to officially announce the first Macs based on Apple-developed ARM processors during the holiday quarter, alongside macOS Big Sur.
Although the pandemic wrecked countless businesses throughout the year, delaying key Apple products and impacting second quarter earnings , the company weathered the storm impressively, using its strong online retail infrastructure to offset the closures of its brick-and-mortar stores. Sales of Macs and iPads surged to meet new demand for work-from-home and study-from-home devices, and in the third quarter, Apple reported growth across all its geographic segments.
During the July 30 announcement of its third quarter results , Apple said it would split its stock by a 4:1 ratio on August 31, spurring a $2 trillion market capitalization in mid-August and a peak share price of $134.18 on September 1. While the market cap has since fallen from its high of over $2.3 trillion, it has floated around the $2 trillion mark.
Apple also declared a $0.205 per share cash dividend for the quarter, seemingly down from the typical $0.77 per share but actually adjusted upwards, given the 4:1 stock split. It will be payable on November 12 to shareholders on record as of November 9, 2020. Due to continued COVID-19-related unpredictability, the company is not offering guidance for the holiday quarter.
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"Canalys: Samsung led Q3 smartphone shipments, Xiaomi knocked Apple out of the top 3 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/30/canalys-samsung-led-q3-smartphone-shipments-xiaomi-knocked-apple-out-of-the-top-3"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Canalys: Samsung led Q3 smartphone shipments, Xiaomi knocked Apple out of the top 3 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Samsung Store in London Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Samsung reclaimed its “top smartphone vendor” title from Huawei in Q3 2020, according to the latest figures from Canalys, while Apple slipped into fourth place behind Xiaomi — the first time the iPhone maker has missed the top three in at least 12 years.
While smartphone shipments were down 1% from the corresponding period last year , Canalys figures suggest they increased by 22% from Q2 2020 , a period in which much of the world was still in lockdown. Digging into the details reveals some interesting insights about the market and the state of the world in 2020.
Trade turmoil Huawei held the top spot in Q2, the first quarter in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple had been in pole position. This was particularly notable given the U.S. trade ban that has prevented Huawei from using the Google version of Android. However, Huawei’s rise was more indicative of a domestic sales boost in China , where it has never used Google’s Android anyway.
Now it seems Huawei’s international woes have caught up with it, as its newer flagship devices have gone to market minus Google Mobile Services.
Anyone wishing to buy a Huawei flagship online in 2020 will likely see a warning message similar to this: Above: Huawei warning message on third-party retailer website Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi grew its shipments by 45% year-on-year (YoY), shifting 14.5 million more units, while Huawei’s shipments fell by 15.1 million (23%) to 51.7 million. In Europe, which has historically been a key market for Huawei, Xiaomi shipments grew by 88% while Huawei fell 25%.
In the process, Xiaomi reduced the market share deficit between the two companies from around 10 percentage points to less than two percentage points.
Above: Worldwide smartphone shipments and annual growth Canalys Smartphone Market Pulse: Q3 2020 Xiaomi also joined the ranks of the top three smartphone vendors for the first time, nudging Apple into fourth place in the process. Canalys senior tech analyst Ben Stanton noted that the last time Apple missed the top three was back in the days when Nokia ruled the roost and Apple was battling Motorola for third place.
“Apple did spend some quarters outside of the top three when iPhone was fairly nascent, but it has been a top three vendor for every quarter since Q3 2008, until now,” Stanton told VentureBeat.
Samsung has remained reasonably steady from year to year, with shipments up 2% and its market share growing marginally. However, the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) story is interesting, as Samsung’s shipments increased by 50% across the two periods. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including the fact that Samsung leans heavily on offline retail channels that were decimated in Q2 due to the global lockdown. The Korean technology titan saw its smartphone shipments fall by an incredible 30% YoY in Q2, compared to just -5% and -10% for Huawei and Xiaomi respectively, while Apple bucked the downward trend by growing its shipments by 25%.
This time around, stores have largely reopened, even if footfall isn’t at prepandemic levels. Moreover, Canalys analyst Shengtao Jin attributed Samsung’s recovery to “pent-up demand” from Q2 spilling over into Q3, while growth in India also helped, as did adding a handful of low- to mid-range smartphones and shifting to more online sales.
Apple announced its latest flagship phones slightly later this year, in October rather than at its usual September launch event , which could have had some impact on these figures. However, it’s difficult to draw any direct correlations between this delay and Apple’s drop to fourth place, as iPhone shipments only declined marginally YoY. These figures are slightly more pronounced when compared to the previous quarter, but Apple had launched a cheaper (and smaller) iPhone SE back in April , which played a big part in its Q2 surge.
The takeaway from this Canalys report is that Samsung’s smartphone brand remains strong, while Xiaomi appears to be capitalizing on Huawei’s U.S. trade tussles. The next quarter will be particularly interesting to watch, as Apple’s latest flagships will have several months to attract users and Huawei will continue efforts to convince consumers they don’t need Google.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Intel shows off DG1 graphics chip for 2021 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/06/intel-shows-off-its-xe-dg1-graphics-chip-for-2021"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Intel shows off DG1 graphics chip for 2021 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Intel DG1 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Intel showed off its n ot-so-secret graphics processing unit , the DG1, at its press event at CES 2020, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week. Intel said that a game running on a big screen was powered by DG1.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel has been trying to move into discrete graphics chips for a long time. Intel makes integrated graphics, which are packaged with other functions and shipped with many low-end PCs. But it has never made the GPUs that gamers and datacenter operators really care about.
Above: Intel CEO Bob Swan at CES 2020.
But that should change by 2021, when Intel starts shipping its Xe DG1, which has been the subject of leaks in recent weeks.
But Intel executives like Raja Koduri and Jim Keller have been dropping hints for a while that Intel is serious about coming up with better chip designs such as high-end graphics chips.
Of course, Intel didn’t reveal that much. But rivals such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are busy shipping a lot of discrete GPUs today, and they’re not standing still. Intel’s GPU is likely to target the data center, where graphics chips have made great headway. But maybe one day it will also target gamers, if it becomes competitive enough.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Various analysts said there wasn’t really enough detail for them to talk about Intel’s competitiveness in graphics chips yet. But Intel’s integrated graphics are a huge part of the overall graphics market.
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"Amazon to acquire organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/16/amazon-to-acquire-whole-foods-market-for-13-7-billion"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon to acquire organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A box from Amazon.com is pictured on the porch of a house in Golden, Colorado July 23, 2008.
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Amazon has announced something of a curveball acquisition today, as the internet giant revealed plans to snap up healthy supermarket chain Whole Foods Market in an all-cash deal worth nearly $14 billion.
Founded out of Austin, Texas in 1980, Whole Foods Market specializes in natural food that doesn’t have artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or sweeteners.
“Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, in a press release.
“Whole Foods Market has been satisfying, delighting, and nourishing customers for nearly four decades — they’re doing an amazing job and we want that to continue.” Whole Foods Market has been a public company since 1992, and its shares hit an all-time high of around $65 in 2013. Its stock has been hovering around the $33 mark for the past few years, however, with the shares closing at $33.06 yesterday. Amazon is offering $42 per share for the company, a premium of around 27 percent on yesterday’s closing price, for a total value of $13.7 billion.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “This partnership presents an opportunity to maximize value for Whole Foods Market’s shareholders, while at the same time extending our mission and bringing the highest quality, experience, convenience, and innovation to our customers,” added Whole Foods Market’s cofounder and CEO, John Mackey.
The deal still has to attain shareholder approval, of course, as well as passing the usual regulatory and closing conditions, which the duo expect will happen in the second half of 2017. Assuming the acquisition is seen through to completion, Whole Foods Market will continue as is under its own brand, with Mackey remaining CEO.
Online books to brick-and-mortar groceries Amazon has long transcended its roots as an online bookstore and today offers everything from video-streaming services to on-demand restaurant deliveries.
While its decision to effectively merge with Whole Foods Market may seem like an oddity on the surface, it’s not entirely out of line with Amazon’s recent initiatives in the grocery realm.
In fact, Amazon has offered a grocery delivery service for a decade already. First launched in beta back in 2007 in Mercer Island, Washington, AmazonFresh later expanded across the U.S. into Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, and Philadelphia, among many other U.S. cities. Last year, it also launched in London, which represented its first international market. Whole Foods Market, as it happens, also operates seven stores in the U.K. capital.
AmazonFresh delivers a range of domestic goods and produce — including fruit, vegetables, and meat — on the same day or the next day, depending when they’re ordered. The service is available to $99/year Prime members, who must pay an additional $15 per month to access the grocery delivery service.
Amazon has also been pursuing own-brand brick-and-mortar stores, including bookstores , the most recent of which opened in New York City.
And late last year Amazon debuted its own grocery store in Seattle , as the company sought to shine a light on a futuristic new “checkout free” shopping experience.
So Amazon has made no secret of its aspirations in the grocery realm. But why buy Whole Foods Market? Well, the internet behemoth is every bit as much a delivery and logistics company as it is an online marketplace for buying USB memory sticks, books, and cheap mobile phones. And as a result of this acquisition, Amazon is entering the grocery fray in a major way. As things stand, Whole Foods Market offers one-hour deliveries via Instacart , but once this acquisition is complete, you can bet your bootlaces that Amazon will be placing groceries front and center within its online ordering and delivery network.
This acquisition also helps highlight the growing convergence between the offline and online worlds. Last August, Walmart revealed it was buying fledgling online retailer Jet.com for $3 billion in cash in what many viewed as a direct swipe at Amazon. Now, Amazon is hitting back by buying Whole Foods Market outright, grabbing a direct conduit into more than 400 stores across North America and the U.K., which should lead to some interesting offline/online cross-pollination.
Finally, this acquisition shows that to compete effectively in the grocery market, you need a strong, local on-the-ground presence — and that’s what Amazon now has with Whole Foods Market.
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"Like most of us, Amazon spent too much on Whole Foods | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/20/like-most-of-us-amazon-spent-too-much-on-whole-foods"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Like most of us, Amazon spent too much on Whole Foods Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
We are entering an era of seismic change — retailers have started to right-size their physical assets (whether those are stores, transportation assets, or other physical capital investments) enabled by the move to cloud computing and the ability to intelligently connect stores, devices, warehouses, and transportation.
Amazon, however, has been moving in the exact opposite direction, albeit cautiously at first: investing in physical distribution and infrastructure, including brick-and-mortar experiments like its consumer electronics pop-ups, baker’s dozen bookstores, and Amazon Go grab-and-go convenience store. With its $13.7 billion Whole Foods acquisition announced late last week, it has now cannonballed into the physical retail world with 465 stores across the country, in a category commonly accepted as key to building customer loyalty. It’s a direct volley at Walmart, whose strategy has long relied on dominance in grocery to maintain its position as the #1 retailer in the world.
Was this a smart investment? With this acquisition, Amazon certainly acquires a highly regarded brand with a dedicated customer base in a critical category, but it also acquires a lot of expensive suburban real estate. Amazon paid a 27 percent premium for Whole Foods (whose stock price had declined from a high of $65 to $30). Its previous watermark for an acquisition was $1.2 billion in stock for Zappos in 2009.
At face value, this strategy makes sense: “The brand is a good complement to Amazon and would allow them to more aggressively target fresh food delivery to the at-home market,” Darren Tristano, Chief Insights Officer at Technomic, told CNBC. And if that means also delivering an Echo, bestselling novel, diapers, or a new TV with that weekly grocery replenishment, so be it. However, Amazon didn’t need to make this purchase at this price; there are other ways to achieve similar objectives with a strategic partnership instead of a full — expensive — acquisition. Buying a minority stake in WFM, or partnering with it to facilitate last-mile delivery and returns as well as building its fresh grocery business, could be had for a fraction of the cost and a lot less liability.
Buying this heavily into physical retail right now, when all signs point to overdevelopment, also seems a little like skating to where the puck was versus where it will be in terms of retail. It could be perceived as a backwards move. Physical retail is a business Amazon has yet to learn — and now it is responsible for almost 500 locations and the nearly 100k (human) employees on the ground who come with it.
Stretched too thin? A warning from GE By working to expand Amazon’s scope across so many disparate fronts concurrently, from original entertainment content with Prime Video and Twitch, proprietary hardware devices like the Kindle and Echo, AWS cloud services, its growing logistics network, a potential play for the office with its rumoured eyeing of Slack, and now a major stake in the (literal) ground of physical retail and grocery, is Bezos reincarnating the spirit of GE’s “Neutron Jack”? For those who may not remember, throughout the ’90s, Jack Welch conglomerated multiple disparate businesses into the new GE, which extended far afield from its core business of power. “Neutron Jack”, as he came to be known, bought and slashed ruthlessly to build a juggernaut that was fueled by GE Capital. The biggest surprise was probably its acquisition of the flagship entertainment property NBCUniversal. Twenty years later, GE has underperformed its peers and has continued shedding assets including NBCUniversal, GE Capital, and maybe more to come. What was originally seen as a diversification strategy is now recognized as a fatal lack of focus, which may also plague Amazon down the road.
In an era where “economies of scale” dominate the retail category, Amazon and Walmart are converging from different directions. As Walmart continues to transform its digital strategy and elevate its brand perception (through Jet, Modcloth, Moosejaw, Bonobos, etc.), Amazon is seeking physical economies of scale. It’s too early to predict the outcome of this deal, but it will come down to how successful Amazon can be at stitching together the back-end of the supply chain to the consumer-facing one, now including Whole Foods.
Amit Sharma is a former Walmart executive and current CEO at Narvar (the retail tech behind Levis, Sephora, Nordstrom and 400+ others). He’s also a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,117 | 2,018 |
"The retail apocalypse isn't over yet | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/04/the-retail-apocalypse-isnt-over-yet"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest The retail apocalypse isn’t over yet Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Is the retail apocalypse already over? If so, that was a short one! Big box retailers Target, Walmart, and Best Buy just announced record “same store sales” results (6.5 percent year over year, YoY, at Target, 4.5 percent at Walmart, 6.2 percent at Best Buy) for the second quarter of 2018. Here is what the latest earning calls claim are the reasons: Target: Foot traffic plus strong sales in home, essentials, and food and beverage categories Walmart: Strong foot traffic plus gains in grocery, apparel, and seasonal categories Best Buy: Favorable retail environment plus “unique and elevated” experience To corroborate the news, I had a chat with a buyer in Target’s baby department, and she told me sales certainly have “gone through the roof.” As a former Target employee, had I made a mistake leaving retail for venture capital a few years ago? But when my friend added that the sales growth had come on the heels of the Babies”R”Us/Toys”R”Us closures,” I knew something was off.
What if the strong results were not due to savvy business strategy but rather to macro effects ( it’s the economy, stupid! ) and simple traffic shifts due to closures of other major retailers? Retail theater or reality? Target and Walmart recently overhauled their home and fashion businesses, both prime margin producers in the retail world. Target also acquired Shipt to compete in the grocery delivery business. All three retailers are touting intangibles such as “guest experience” and “execution.” But what is really happening here? Tactics like brand overhauls and acquisitions have been around for decades, but gains of this magnitude aren’t a result of people buying more food, a few jazzy in-store displays, and some Instagram-ready home furnishing sections.
Above: Target’s refreshed home good sections Behind these earnings-call-friendly tactics lies the reality: 1) the economy is soaring and 2) retail chain closures have left market share on the table.
Above: Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Target against 2Y S&P 500 Index. Source: Yahoo Finance Let’s start with the economy. The second quarter US GDP was just revised up last week to 4.2 percent, a four-year high. The S&P index is up 35 percent from two years ago. The unemployment rate is at a decade-low of 3.9 percent. More people are employed and spending money, and that’s a good thing. But just like a kite flies well in 50mph winds, things could change quickly if the economy turns south or if the Fed raises interest rates.
Now, store closures.
7,000 in 2017 , 2018 is on par.
Where do these people shop now? Keep in mind, only 13 percent of total retail is online today (44 percent of which goes to Amazon). When HH Greg and Radio Shack closed, these customers went straight to Best Buy, while Kmart, Sears, and JCPenney closures are a certain boon for Target and Walmart. Without Toys”R”Us, Q4 will be a banner quarter for Walmart and Target’s toy businesses.
When the last CEO of Target, Gregg Steinhafel was ousted in the wake of the 2013 credit card disaster, his legacy was also missing the boat on investing in e-commerce technology. It was a disaster internally. Despite excellent YoY growth results, online sales at Target and Walmart are still a mere 5 percent of total sales. As people migrate online, Amazon continues to grab the upside, with Prime Day to put the cherry on top.
More bad news for big box retailers: The playing field isn’t even fair. Retail profitability is not as important to Amazon, since its leading cloud computing business is spectacularly profitable, driving $4.3 billion in operating income in 2017. Further, Amazon also profits from its advertising tools, even eating into the market shares of Google and Facebook. Indeed, the company reached a $1 trillion market valuation today. If Amazon makes retail a loss leader, who can compete? So, what are the remaining big box retailers to do? I’ve heard a lot about the importance of “experiential retail” lately but, no pun intended, I’m not sure I buy it. What could beat Amazon’s “Buy Now” button? As a busy mom, the satisfaction of that single click gets me every time. And consumers usually head to Amazon way before brick-and-mortar, depriving big box retailers of a “novelty factor” on the shelves.
To stay competitive, I see two ways to turn the tide: Automation: Why is shopping in a retail store exactly the same as it was 50 years ago? Why do customers need to search for store employees for help, face out-of-stock items, or walk products to their cars? And why on earth have we not fully automated the checkout process? There are excellent solutions for some of these problems that are waiting to be implemented. Yet retailers keep focusing on “retail theater” such as AR experiences and “stores of the future” instead of solving the real hassles of brick-and-mortar shopping. Amazon is working as quickly as it can to solve these problems — from Amazon Go to surveillance camera-powered checkout.
If other retailers don’t catch up, they will join the graveyard of retailers past.
Competitive advantage: The best plan may very well be to go after the categories that will be harder for Amazon to win in: home goods, apparel, pharmacy, and food. Amazon has made moves in these spaces, too, with the acquisition of Whole Foods, PillPack , and the re-launch of its apparel business , but the race is still on. People are fairly attached to trying on clothes, scoping out home decor, and picking out groceries. Regulations prevent online pharmacies from easily fulfilling all prescription orders.
While the latest sales numbers from retailers may make it look like they’re back in business, it’s more likely they’re experiencing a brief respite before the apocalypse continues. The question is, will they use this short window of opportunity to turn their fortunes around, or will they continue to pursue strategies that aren’t working? Kate Whitcomb runs the San Francisco branch of HAX , an SOSV -funded accelerator for hardware and connected devices, with offices in San Francisco and Shenzhen, China.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Amazon Fire HD tablets gain Drop In video calls and Announcements | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/05/amazon-fire-hd-tablets-gain-drop-in-video-calls-and-announcements"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon Fire HD tablets gain Drop In video calls and Announcements Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Fire tablet: Demonstrating show mode and charging dock Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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If you’ve ever felt the urge to ping an unsuspecting Fire HD tablet owner with a video call, good news: Now you can. Amazon today announced that starting this week Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 owners will be able to receive Drop In video calls from Alexa-enabled devices with displays and cameras, like the Echo Show and Echo Spot.
The new features are coming in a software update that’ll begin rolling out today. Previously, only the current-generation Fire HD 8, 2017 Fire HD 8, and Fire HD 10 tablets have been supported.
Drop In, you might recall, gives you a hands-free way to connect to Alexa devices instantly, without having to wait for the person on the other end to answer. It’s an optional feature and has to be enabled from the Settings menu — you’ll find it under Alexa > Hands-Free Mode, where you’ll also be able to specify which contacts and devices can use it.
As part of the above-mentioned update, Fire HD tablets are also gaining Announcements — messages recorded and sent via Echo products and other speakers, displays, and gadgets that tap the Alexa Voice Service, a cloud-based suite of tools that enable developers to add Alexa functionality to their devices. This feature must also be switched on from the settings menu (Communications > Calling and Messaging).
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Both Drop In and Announcements are part of Show Mode, a setting that effectively transforms Fire HD tablets into Amazon Echo Show-style devices. Either standing alone or docked in Amazon’s Show Mode Charging Docks, Show Mode offers largely the same menus and features as the Show proper, including visual responses, video flash briefings, smart home controls, photo slideshows sourced from Amazon’s Prime Photos storage service, and access to Alexa’s more than 50,000 third-party voice apps.
Show Mode is activated with a swipe down from the Quick Settings menu and a tap of the corresponding button.
Updated at 2:46 p.m. Pacific: Additionally, Amazon revealed that Announcements are heading to the Fire TV Cube starting today, and that in December, Alexa on Fire TV Cube will support Announcements based on smart home device activity. The latter includes motion detection and doorbell rings, and users will be able to customize responses in the Routines section of the Alexa app.
Fire TV Cube owners can manage the settings for Alexa Announcements via the Alexa app.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,119 | 2,019 |
"Why Amazon won’t dominate in groceries | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/26/why-amazon-wont-dominate-in-groceries"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Why Amazon won’t dominate in groceries Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Grocery is the largest retail segment in the U.S., but its online penetration remains low: Only 3% of grocery sales happen online , compared to 30.2% for electronics and 27.4% for apparel. The reason? Groceries are particularly hard to handle with the kind of warehouse distribution model that an online retail powerhouse like Amazon relies on.
The company I work for provides machine learning-enabled robotics for picking products in warehouses, so the grocery challenge is a topic I keep a close eye on. And recently, there’s been some interesting experimentation on this front, with British online grocer Ocado trying out a whole new approach to the one Amazon has trialed so far.
Amazon’s stumble When Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017, stock prices for Costco, Target, and Kroger tanked. The market expected Amazon to transform the grocery industry just as it transformed book sales, retail, delivery, and many other industries. But today, more than two years after the Whole Foods buy, grocery has yet to be “Amazoned.” In fact, Walmart , the largest grocer in the United States, just reported a 41% surge in online sales driven by its strong grocery segment. Perhaps grocery will indeed be Amazon’s Waterloo as Whole Foods founder John Mackey once suggested ? Amazon is good at providing a large selection of products with fast shipping and low prices. But foods are perishable. Their values degrade over time as they get transported. You cannot stock lots of food for faster delivery or a better economy of scale because it will go bad.
That’s why grocery is fragmented. It’s not the “winner takes all” market — like ecommerce — that Amazon is used to.
The Ocado model Ocado seems to understand the nature of grocery better than anyone else: It knows there won’t be a globally dominant player in the grocery industry. So it has made a bold move to license its technology to other grocers, from the mobile interface to the automated warehouse.
Ocado has recently licensed its end-to-end ecommerce solution to some of the world’s largest grocery retailers, including Groupe Casino and Sobeys. Last year, Ocado signed a major deal with Kroger , the United States’ second-largest general retailer (behind Walmart) to build up to 20 fulfillment centers with Ocado’s automated technologies. The transition from a grocery company to a tech company boosted its valuation.
In contrast, after Amazon acquired warehouse robotics company Kiva , it stopped supporting other retailers and will not share Kiva robots with its competitors. Both Amazon and Ocado heavily invested in technology and vertical integration, but they have very different strategies.
Amazon wants to drive more customers to the platform to further improve its cost structure so that it can decrease prices and attract even more customers. That’s why the company recently made Amazon Fresh free and plans to open a new grocery store brand next year.
On the other hand, Ocado is positioned to “help retailers in other parts of the world [to build a successful e-commerce business],” according to CEO Tim Steiner.To become the best technology partner of retailers, Ocado actively invests in robotics and artificial intelligence. It recently published a paper on Few Shot Learning , a technology that can potentially allow machines to recognize the ever-expanding and changing SKUs in grocery stores.
While it’s difficult to create an economy of scale in grocery, it’s entirely possible to leverage network effects and build a tech empire. By providing its technology to other retailers, Ocado will have more data and know-how for food handling than any other company in the world. It can then expand this defensible competitive advantage to adjacent markets, including restaurants and farming. In fact, Ocado has already started to invest in vertical farms and robotics startup Karakuri , which automates the assembly of ready-to-eat meals.
We’ve seen Silicon Valley tech giants disrupting industry after industry from finance to automotive while traditional industry players struggling to react. Ocado’s approach may actually be the silver lining: Traditional retailers could finally have a way to transform themselves and stay relevant in the age of disruption.
Bastiane Huang is a Product Manager at Osaro , an AI/robotics startup based in San Francisco backed by Peter Thiel and Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud. She previously worked for Amazon Alexa.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"How Instacart remade its systems to handle a 500% jump in order volume | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/21/how-instacart-remade-its-systems-to-handle-a-500-jump-in-order-volume"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How Instacart remade its systems to handle a 500% jump in order volume Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Shelter-in-place orders and business closures motivated by the coronavirus pandemic have prompted a rise in demand for goods delivery. A report published by CivicScience suggests that 22% of U.S. adults surveyed are having food delivered, up from 19% in early April. A separate RBC Capital Markets study found that 41% of 1,500 respondents expected to buy groceries online within the coming months. And eMarketer estimates that online U.S. food and beverage sales will grow 23.4% to over $32 billion by 2021, making it the fastest-growing category in ecommerce.
Instacart is among those benefiting from this historic growth. In spite of expenditures that will expand its workforce of service agents and shoppers by hundreds of thousands , it made a net profit of about $10 million in April, the Information reported.
According to that report, Instacart customers bought close to $700 million worth of goods in the first two weeks of April, helping reverse the company’s loss of $300 million in 2019.
In an interview, Instacart CTO Mark Schaaf told VentureBeat that keeping pace with the influx of business has required technical innovations across engineering, product and design, and data science teams. With order volumes increasing 500% year-over-year, app downloads up 218% month-over-month in March, and three years’ of projected growth occurring within a period of 30 days (from March 10 to March 31), behind-the-scene changes had to be made to keep the site, apps, and service stable.
Infrastructure and AI improvements Schaaf says that through the month of March, Instacart scaled out the infrastructure supporting its customer-facing app, shopper app, enterprise software, and advertising engine ahead of a 20% day-over-day growth trajectory. This entailed “breaking” and resetting various backend systems to align projected growth on the platform with order growth occurring as shelter-in-place mandates rolled out across North America.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! For instance, as Instacart expanded delivery to 2,500 new store locations with 35 new retail partners beginning in March, it made changes to its configuration datastores to better handle “dramatically” different read and write patterns corresponding with fluctuations in orders. These upgrades were often made multiple times a week.
Above: Day-to-day traffic trends through March 2020.
Instacart implemented changes aimed at narrowing the gap between what’s in-store and shown on its apps to address a nearly 30% drop in ordered items being found (at the beginning of March) and over 35% month-over-month growth in average customer basket size. Engineers at the company built a new tool that allows retailers to specify maximum item quantities, enabling Instacart to track retailer-specific item maximums across 350 partners and over 25,000 stores daily.
Instacart also made changes to its item availability model. The model predicts whether products were found by shoppers, considering among other variables the time, day of the week, and item-specific metadata. To better anticipate which products might be in short supply, the company doubled the rate at which it ran the model from every two hours to every hour while at the same time narrowing the range of historical data the model considers from 30 days to one week (and in some cases three days).
Elsewhere, Instacart doubled the number of products the item availability model scores, allowing the automatic filtering of low-stock items in search results. At stores where items like yeast, flour, paper towels, meat, or toilet paper are in relatively short supply, customers might not see them listed for purchase through Instacart’s apps. Alternatively, they might encounter “out of stock” badges next to products that are likely to become unavailable.
“We have long used the item availability model, with a few key goals. First, to remove items from the storefront that are unlikely to be found in the store based on near real-time data. And second, to set expectations regarding stock levels and create an experience where customers can select replacement preferences for items that may not be in the store,” said Schaaf. “As demand within different categories continues to ebb and flow, we’ll readjust our availability and replacement models as needed.” Instacart also reengineered its fulfillment capacity model to meet the needs of customers marooned at home. The company claims the model that calculates how much order capacity is available at any time now runs twice as fast — every two minutes — taking into account new store hours and restocking times. For end users, this translates to faster fulfillment time refreshes on Instacart’s app and site, says Schaaf.
“I’m proud of the work our teams have done to accommodate new customers and shoppers over the last two months and meet the demand we’ve seen,” added Schaaf. “If you look at the hard data, things are beginning to even out. Last week, nearly 95% of all orders were delivered the same or next day — up from about 50% of all orders being delivered the same or next day at the end of March.” Feature rollouts The pandemic accelerated the rollout of features Instacart began piloting in recent months, including Leave at My Door Delivery and Mobile Checkout. The company pushed Leave at My Door Delivery, which instructs Instacart shoppers to drop items off at customer-specified locations, to all users in March. It similarly fast-tracked Mobile Checkout — which lets shoppers pay at store registers using Apple Pay or Google Pay — and expanded pickup from more than 400 new store locations.
Instacart also greenlit a streamlined alcohol delivery feature that allows shoppers to scan a customer’s ID upon delivery, eliminating the need for signatures on those customers’ phones. (Unless it’s required by the retailer or the state they deliver in, shoppers won’t get prompts to collect signatures; they can instead enter the date in the signature box.) In a period of about two weeks, the company launched Fast and Flexible ordering, which lets users skip normal delivery windows and opt for the first open window in their area. And it debuted a new prescription management tool with Costco that lets customers order prescription medications online — along with their groceries — in 42 states.
Today, Instacart launched a new in-app safety hub intended to provide access to safety tools, resources, and guidelines for part- and full-time shoppers. In partnership with ADT in the coming weeks, a “Get emergency assistance” button will connect workers with emergency services if need be, sharing their GPS location and contact details with EMTs. Beyond this, shoppers will see new guidance on safety organizations and injury protection, as well as about topics like shipping and delivery safety.
Also today, Instacart began rolling out shopper identity verification, which prompts shoppers to take periodic photos of themselves to ensure their accounts remain secure. These arrive alongside new perks via partnerships with Sprint, CarAdvise, and Good Same that provide shoppers with savings on cell phone coverage, automobile maintenance, and roadside assistance.
“We’re seeing the highest customer demand in Instacart history and have more active shoppers on our platform today than ever before, picking and delivering groceries for consumers across North America,” said Schaaf. “COVID-19 has changed the way everyone gets their food, and it’s required us to redesign our products and systems. [The new] features … better reflect everyone’s new normal — bulk buying and low item availability.” Responding to workers Customer-facing improvements aside, Instacart — which delivers from over 25,000 stores in more than 5,000 cities in North America — has been criticized for its response to shoppers claiming they’re being put in harm’s way. While the company announced in early spring that it would provide paid leave to part-time workers who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 or who were placed in mandatory quarantine, obtaining those benefits requires a COVID-19 test or a letter from a public health agency.
And shipments of the company’s promised safety kits containing face masks, hand sanitizer, and thermometers were reportedly delayed by several weeks.
In March, workers staged a protest demanding that the company provide more flexible paid leave and $5-per-order hazard payments.
Bowing to pressure, Instacart recently introduced a bonus program and additional promotions that let full-service shoppers earn more depending on regional demand. (The company says it has spent $20 million over the last few weeks to support shoppers.) In addition, it rolled out a Wellness Check feature to assess whether workers are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms by asking them questions via Instacart’s shopper app. If the shopper indicates that they aren’t feeling well, Wellness Check directs them to contact their health care provider and refrain from shopping until they feel better.
“Throughout our time sheltered in place, the team has done a lot of work to open up more aisles of the grocery store for delivery and pickup,” said Schaaf. “[And] our … teams are committed to the health and safety of the shopper community.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Amazon reports $96.1 billion in Q3 2020 revenue: AWS up 29%, subscriptions up 33%, and 'other' up 51% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/amazon-earnings-q3-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon reports $96.1 billion in Q3 2020 revenue: AWS up 29%, subscriptions up 33%, and ‘other’ up 51% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Boves, France, September 18, 2019.
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Amazon today reported earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2020, including revenue up 37% to $96.1 billion, net income of $6.3 billion, and earnings per share of $12.37 (compared to revenue of $70.0 billion, net income of $2.1 billion, and earnings per share of $4.23 in Q3 2019 ). North American sales were up 39% to $59.4 billion, while international sales grew 37% to $25.2 billion.
This is Amazon’s second full quarter during the coronavirus pandemic. Given the company’s leadership position in online retail and the cloud, its results are a bellwether for the industry. In Q2, Amazon set aside “$4.0 billion in costs related to COVID-19,” followed up by $2.0 billion in Q3. For Q4, Amazon set aside another “$4.0 billion of costs related to COVID-19.” The company does not want to be seen as benefiting too much from the pandemic — its $5.2 billion in quarterly profit in Q2 was the largest ever in its 26-year history. It broke that record again in Q3 with $6.3 billion in quarterly profit, up 200% year-over-year.
In a statement, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos highlighted that Amazon had “created over 400,000 jobs this year alone.” Indeed, Amazon’s headcount jumped 28% from 876,800 employees in Q2 to 1,125,300 in Q3 (up 50% year-over-year).
Analysts had expected Amazon to earn $92.7 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $7.41. The retail giant thus easily beat on both. The company’s stock was up 1.5% in regular trading and down 2% in after-hours trading. Amazon gave fourth quarter revenue guidance in the range of $112.0 billion and $121.0 billion, compared to a consensus of $112.3 billion from analysts. Bezos noted “more customers than ever shopping early for their holiday gifts, which is just one of the signs that this is going to be an unprecedented holiday season.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! AWS settles at sub-30% growth In Q1, Amazon Web Services (AWS) passed the $10 billion milestone, even as growth continued to slow. In Q2, AWS growth fell to 29% — the first sub-30% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. It stayed there, at 29%, this past quarter. The growth rate has been falling steadily for the past two years, and while COVID-19 accelerated the trend, at least Q3 wasn’t worse than Q2.
$AMZN AWS revenue growth – Q1 2017: 43% – Q2 2017: 42% – Q3 2017: 42% – Q4 2017: 45% – Q1 2018: 49% – Q2 2018: 49% – Q3 2018: 48% – Q4 2018: 45% – Q1 2019: 41% – Q2 2019: 37% – Q3 2019: 35% – Q4 2019: 34% – Q1 2020: 33% – Q2 2020: 29% – Q3 2020: 29% https://t.co/r5eFZdPWD9 — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) October 29, 2020 AWS is the cloud computing market leader, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. High-percentage growth cannot continue unabated, but for a market leader, sales growth of 29% to $11.6 billion is still impressive.
AWS accounted for about 12.1% of Amazon’s total revenue for the quarter, which is on the lower end but in line with Q2. “We’re seeing a lot of customers who are now moving to the cloud at a faster pace,” CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the Q3 earnings call.
Subscriptions and “other” (ads) Subscription services were up 33% to $6.58 billion. This segment mainly constitutes Amazon Prime and its 150 million paid members.
Amazon highlighted Prime Day, which took place this year on October 13-14 (and doesn’t fall into Q3 results). Instead of saying this year’s event was its “biggest in history,” as Amazon has said in past years, the company described it as “the two biggest days ever for small and medium businesses in Amazon’s stores.” A company spokesperson declined to comment on how Prime Day 2020 compared to Prime Day 2019.
Amazon’s “other” category, which mostly covers the company’s advertising business, was up 51% to $5.4 billion in revenue. The company knows plenty about what its customers want to buy, or don’t want to buy, and so its advertising business continues to pay dividends. As the company rakes in online shopping dividends from the pandemic, its advertising business benefits as well.
As always, Alexa was mentioned many times (19, to be exact) in the company’s press release. Amazon still won’t break out the voice assistant in its earnings reports. In Q1, the company noted that Alexa “can now answer tens of thousands of questions related to COVID-19.” It didn’t say anything similar for Q2 or Q3. Amazon did, however, highlight new Echo devices unveiled during its September showcase. That event reminded us that the company is also in the business of surveillance-as-a-service.
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"Snap shares jump 23% as Snapchat user growth and revenue beat estimates | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/21/snap-shares-jump-23-as-snapchat-user-growth-and-revenue-beat-estimates"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Snap shares jump 23% as Snapchat user growth and revenue beat estimates Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — Shares of Snap rallied 23% on Tuesday after the Snapchat messaging app owner beat user growth and revenue forecasts. This came as more people signed up to chat with friends and family during the coronavirus pandemic.
Daily active users (DAUs), a metric widely watched by investors and advertisers, rose 18% year-over-year to 249 million in the quarter ended September 30, the company said in a statement. Analysts had expected 244 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
The company said it expected continued momentum in user growth and forecast about 257 million daily active users in the fourth quarter, exceeding analysts’ current estimate of 249.81 million.
Revenue, mainly from selling ads on the app, jumped 52% to $679 million, widely beating analysts’ consensus estimate of $555.9 million.
Snap has positioned itself as a safe place for brands to advertise because it focuses on one-on-one messages that disappear once they are read.
That reputation served Snap well in the third quarter, when over 1,000 advertisers boycotted larger rival Facebook for the month of July in response to issues of hate speech on the platform, and as popular short-form video app TikTok faced the possibility of a U.S. ban over national security concerns.
This opened an opportunity for Snap, as companies reviewed their ad spending, and helped contribute to revenue growth, chief business officer Jeremi Gorman said during an earnings call with analysts.
Snap has “unique ad offerings, such as augmented reality advertising,” that helped its performance, eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.
The app has been able to grow its user base outside the United States and Europe by partnering with local telecommunication providers and building features like photo filters and lenses that are locally relevant, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said during the earnings call.
Average revenue per user was $2.73, up 28% from the year-ago quarter.
Snap’s net loss narrowed to $199.8 million, or 14 cents per share, from $227.37 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier.
Snap said current-quarter revenue could grow between 47% and 50% over the year-ago period but cautioned that it was unclear how the pandemic would affect year-end holiday advertising.
Snap rose to $35.00 after closing 0.7% lower at $28.45.
Shares of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest also rose in after-hours trading.
( Reporting by Sheila Dang. Editing by Richard Chang.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Microsoft reports $35.7 billion in Q1 2021 revenue: Azure up 48%, Surface up 37%, and LinkedIn up 16% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/27/microsoft-earnings-q1-2021"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Microsoft reports $35.7 billion in Q1 2021 revenue: Azure up 48%, Surface up 37%, and LinkedIn up 16% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Microsoft office sign.
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Microsoft today reported earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2021, including revenue up 12% to $37.2 billion, net income of $13.9 billion, and earnings per share of $1.82 (compared to revenue of $33.1 billion, net income of $10.7 billion, and earnings per share of $1.14 in Q1 2020 ). All three of the company’s operating groups saw year-over-year growth.
Analysts had expected Microsoft to earn $35.7 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $1.54. The company thus easily beat expectations, suggesting some (but not all) units are benefiting from the effects of the pandemic. The company’s stock was up 1.5% in regular trading and flat in after-hours trading. Microsoft returned $9.5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends during the quarter.
COVID-19 impact on the quarter Microsoft is the first of the tech giants to report results for a second full quarter during the coronavirus pandemic. In the past two quarters, Microsoft had said COVID-19 had minimal net impact on total company revenue. This time, Microsoft merely said its “focus remains on ensuring the safety of our employees, striving to protect the health and well-being of the communities in which we operate, and providing technology and resources to our customers and partners to help them do their best work while remote.” Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about “digital transformation” and didn’t even mention the virus.
“The next decade of economic performance for every business will be defined by the speed of their digital transformation,” Nadella said in a statement. “We are innovating across our full modern tech stack to help our customers in every industry improve time to value, increase agility, and reduce costs.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! A 48% revenue increase for Azure is good news for the company. Azure growth has been falling steadily: 76% in Q2 2019, 73% in Q3 2019, 64% in Q4 2019, and 59% in Q1 2020. It rebounded slightly to 62% in Q2 2020 but returned to 59% in Q3 2020 and then fell to 47% in Q4 2020. Slowing growth is normal at Azure’s size, and while the pandemic accelerated the trend, it appears to have settled.
$MSFT Azure revenue growth – Q1 2018: 90% – Q2 2018: 98% – Q3 2018: 93% – Q4 2018: 89% – Q1 2019: 76% – Q2 2019: 76% – Q3 2019: 73% – Q4 2019: 64% – Q1 2020: 59% – Q2 2020: 62% – Q3 2020: 59% – Q4 2020: 47% – Q1 2021: 48% https://t.co/ru1cuCBFZr — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) October 27, 2020 “Demand for our cloud offerings drove a strong start to the fiscal year, with our commercial cloud revenue generating $15.2 billion, up 31% year over year,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said in a statement. More cloud usage but slower revenue growth means signing on new customers and billing existing customers isn’t as easy during the pandemic. Microsoft does not break out exact Azure revenue numbers, likely to avoid comparisons with industry leader AWS.
Operating group highlights Here are the highlights across Microsoft’s three operating groups: Productivity and Business Processes: Up 11% to $12.3 billion. Office commercial revenue grew 9%, Office consumer and cloud revenue was up 13%, and Dynamics revenue increased 19%. LinkedIn revenue increased 16%, and Office 365 consumer subscribers hit 45.3 million.
Intelligent Cloud: Up 20% to $13.0 billion. Server products and cloud services revenue grew 22%, while Azure revenue was up 48%.
More Personal Computing: Up 6% to $11.8 billion. Windows OEM revenue was down 5%, while Windows commercial revenue increased 13%. Search advertising revenue minus traffic acquisition costs fell 10%. Surface revenue increased 37%, and Xbox content and services revenue increased 30%.
Microsoft Office continues to be a cash cow for the company, thanks to its Office 365 subscription. Having over 45 million consumer subscribers for Office 365 is significant, but it still pales in comparison to the enterprise side. In Q3 2020, Microsoft passed 258 million paid Office 365 business seats (up from 200 million). On the Q1 2021 earnings call, Nadella shared that Microsoft now had 115 million daily active Teams users.
Meanwhile, the situation is mixed on the Windows side. In Q3 2020, Microsoft warned that “the effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods.” Thanks to remote work and remote learning trends, Windows OEM and Windows Commercial revenue were both up in Q4 2020. At the same time, Windows OEM declined in Q1 2020, while Windows Commercial increased. Consumers appear to have satisfied their computer-buying needs, but businesses are still investing in new devices.
LinkedIn, Surface, and Gaming Microsoft’s LinkedIn was doing well right up until the pandemic. Since the December 2016 close of the acquisition , LinkedIn had been delivering double-digit revenue growth for Microsoft. But in Q3, Microsoft issued a warning: “In the final weeks of the quarter, there was a slowdown in transactional licensing, particularly in small and medium businesses, and a reduction in advertising spend in LinkedIn.” In Q4, LinkedIn cut about 960 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce. In Q1, things are looking up, but 20%+ growth quarters are no more. Still, on the Q1 2021 earnings call, Nadella reported LinkedIn growth of 16% year-over-year to 722 million users.
Surface continues to bring in $1 billion each quarter. Q1 2020 ($1.35 billion) and Q2 2020 ($1.98 billion) followed the usual pattern, in that the former is the company’s worst quarter for Surface, while the latter is the best. Q3 2020 ($1.34 billion) was flat, and Q4 2020 ($1.72 billion) was excellent as Microsoft rode the wave of increased PC demand. Q1 2021 ($1.55 billion) was also decent, again if you consider Q1 as typically the worst Surface quarter. In May, Microsoft started shipping the Surface Book 3 , Surface Go 2, Surface Headphones 2, and Surface Earbuds.
Now that we have a full quarter of sales for those devices, it appears they fared well. (Microsoft doesn’t break out Surface revenue by device.) For gaming, Q1 2020 and Q2 2020 were disappointing for Microsoft. Q3 2020 was a little better, while Q4 2020 was a home run. Q1 2021 looks to be somewhere in the middle, as gamers await next month’s Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Xbox content and services revenue increased 30%, and gaming revenue as a whole increased 22%.
Games are performing well during the pandemic , and Microsoft has plenty to be happy about ahead of this holiday season.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Facebook beats analyst estimates for Q3 2020 revenue despite ad boycotts | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/facebook-beats-analyst-estimates-for-q3-2020-revenue-despite-ad-boycotts"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook beats analyst estimates for Q3 2020 revenue despite ad boycotts Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
(Reuters) — Facebook Thursday warned of a tougher 2021, despite beating analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue as businesses adjusting to the global coronavirus pandemic continued to rely on the company’s digital ad tools. The world’s biggest social media company said in its outlook that it faced “a significant amount of uncertainty,” citing impending privacy changes by Apple and a possible reversal in the pandemic-prompted shift to online commerce.
“Considering that online commerce is our largest ad vertical, a change in this trend could serve as a headwind to our 2021 ad revenue growth,” it said. Shares of the company were flat in extended trading.
Facebook’s financial results and those of Google and Amazon demonstrate how resilient tech giants have been, even as the pandemic devastated other parts of the economy. The success has earned them extra scrutiny in Washington, where the companies face multiple antitrust investigations. Facebook’s total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, rose 22% to $21.47 billion from $17.65 billion in the third quarter ended September 30, beating analysts’ estimates of a 12% rise, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
A July ad boycott over Facebook’s handling of hate speech, which saw some of the social media giant’s biggest individual spenders press pause, barely made a dent in its sales, which mostly come from small businesses. Revenue growth at Facebook, the world’s second-biggest seller of online ads after Google, has been cooling steadily as its business matures, although it came in at more than 20% throughout 2019.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Still, compared to expectations, the company has had a bumper year due to surging use of its platforms by users stuck at home amid virus-related lockdowns, which cushioned online ad sales even as broader economic activity suffered. Facebook continued to grow its user base, with monthly active users rising to 2.74 billion, compared with estimates of 2.70 billion, according to the IBES data, although user numbers declined in North America compared to the second quarter. The company projected that trend would continue for the rest of the year, with user numbers either flat or slightly down in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. “It appears that investors are disappointed that despite user growth jumping across most regions during the quarter, the social media platform reported a decrease in users in North America, which covers the U.S. and Canada — its most lucrative ad market,” Investing.com senior analyst Jesse Cohen said.
Total expenses increased 28% to $13.43 billion, with costs continuing to grow as Facebook tries to quell criticism that its handling of user privacy and abusive content is lax. The company has been under especially strong pressure ahead of next week’s U.S. presidential election and is aiming to avoid a repeat of 2016, when Russia used its platforms to spread election-related misinformation.
EMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said Facebook remains “a go-to for advertisers” seeking to reach a broad set of consumers, despite its content moderation issues, but said that may change in 2021. “We expect that more advertisers will take a hard look at their reliance on Facebook and will ask themselves whether the environment is safe for their brands,” she said.
Net income came in at $7.85 billion, or $2.71 per share, compared with $6.09 billion, or $2.12 per share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.90 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
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"Twitter Q3 2020 revenue smashes estimates with $936 million as user growth slows | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/twitter-revenue-grows-14-to-936-million-in-q3-2020-monetizable-users-up-29"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Twitter Q3 2020 revenue smashes estimates with $936 million as user growth slows Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Twitter's profile page on Twitter.com Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Twitter today reported strong revenue growth for Q3 2020, while monetizable users were up year-on-year (YoY) but fell short of estimates. The social networking giant announced its most recent financial and user metrics this afternoon, breaking a long-standing tradition of announcing earnings before the market opens.
The day after CEO Jack Dorsey faced a grilling from the U.S. Senate over how social media companies moderate content, Twitter revealed revenues of $936 million — a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 14% from the $824 million reported last year and a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase of 37% over the $686 million for Q2 2020.
The company added that its net income for the quarter fell around 22% from last year to just under $29 million.
In the earnings press release , Twitter CFO Ned Segal noted that the revenue hike was largely due to advertisers increasing their spend around live sports and other events after holding back in previous quarters because of the pandemic.
In terms of users, Twitter reported 187 million monetizable daily users (mDAUs) for a 29% YoY increase on the 145 million it reported for Q3 2019. However, that figure was only a fraction higher than the previous quarter’s 186 million. Twitter stopped reporting its overall monthly active users last year, choosing instead to focus on the mDAU metric, which it defines as individuals who log in through Twitter.com or any of the mobile apps that are able to show advertisements. This excludes users who don’t log in or who use TweetDeck or other third-party clients.
As with the previous quarter, Twitter hadn’t provided any revenue guidance ahead of its Q3 2020 financials, due to the impact of COVID-19, but analysts had pegged Twitter’s revenue for the quarter at roughly $775 million, while mDAUs had been estimated to reach more than 196 million.
In short, Twitter smashed it on revenue but disappointed on user growth.
Twitter’s shares are sitting at roughly double their March value, having hit a five-year high of more than $52 this week. However, off the back of lower-than-expected user growth, Twitter’s shares plunged up to 12% in after-hours trading.
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"Ubisoft unveils Far Cry 6 for February 18 launch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/12/ubisoft-unveils-far-cry-6-for-february-18-launch"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Ubisoft unveils Far Cry 6 for February 18 launch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Ubisoft unveiled the first trailer for Far Cry 6 at its Ubisoft Forward event today, announcing that the new installment in the popular series will debut on February 18, 2021.
Word of the game had leaked on the internet, but the launch date is new. Far Cry 6 features actor Giancarlo Esposito, a veteran of shows such as Better Call Saul , Breaking Bad , and The Mandalorian.
The trailer shows a young kid in a presidential palace painting a model car, while the same car burns in the streets as protesters surround the palace and lob fire bombs at the police.
Esposito takes the hands of his son, places a grenade in it, and pulls the plug. The kid’s eyes go wide as Esposito asks the kid to follow him to the roof. As they look down on the crowd, Esposito makes a speech about how he’ll be presidente some day and that the people will attack him and call him a monster. And he asks the boy, “Are you a monster?” And he leaves him to decide whether to throw the grenade down at the crowd. The trailer closes before the boy decides what to do.
The video shows the pretty environments and some of the things you can do. Yep, this is a very much a Far Cry game. CEO Yves Guillemot said the trailer would end the Ubisoft event, but the company would show more games at another Forward in the future.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Ubisoft Forward comes just a day after Guillemot announced major departures and changes related to sexual misconduct allegations at Ubisoft. This started in late June as people came forward and told their stories alleging harassment, misconduct, and more from Ubisoft employees. This statement comes despite having a live show ahead of the presentation.
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"Google parent Alphabet returns to sales growth in Q3 2020 as advertising recovers from the pandemic | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/google-parent-alphabet-returns-to-sales-growth-in-q3-2020-as-advertising-recovers-from-the-pandemic"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google parent Alphabet returns to sales growth in Q3 2020 as advertising recovers from the pandemic Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Alphabet CEO and Google CEO Sundar Pichai Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
(Reuters) — Google parent Alphabet on Thursday powered back to sales growth in the third quarter, beating analysts’ estimates as businesses initially hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic resumed advertising with the internet’s biggest supplier of ads. Alphabet shares rose 8% after ending regular trading at $1,556.88, up 13% on the year.
Wall Street had expected a rebound from Alphabet because the company said in July that advertiser spending was inching back, following a March plummet due to lockdowns. Google competitors Snap and Microsoft also reported third quarter revenue ahead of expectations in recent days. Alphabet’s third quarter revenue growth reflected a bump in spending across each of its key ads businesses, including search, YouTube, and partner properties.
CFO Ruth Porat said the company saw upticks from advertisers across all regions and industries. But she did not say whether the trends showed signs of slipping as Europe and other areas tackle significant increases in coronavirus infections. “While we’re pleased with our performance in the third quarter, there is obviously uncertainty in the external environment,” Porat said. She told financial analysts the company would not slow down spending on its cloud computing unit and other areas, even if another round of COVID-19 lockdowns hit ad demand.
Google’s search engine and YouTube video service are gateways to the internet for billions of people and have become more essential as users transact and entertain online to avoid the virus. Advertisers turned to Google’s ad system to let shoppers know about deals and have adjusted service offerings as the economy has begun to chug along again.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! EMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin said YouTube’s year-over-year sales growth, which was 32% compared with about 6% in the second quarter, pointed to “advertisers’ continued desire for video inventory, the return of brand spending, and notable increases in political ad spending” amid the U.S. presidential election.
Google’s cloud business was about flat with the second quarter, as were the company’s sales of apps, hardware, and content subscriptions. Alphabet said it would elevate cloud into a separate reporting unit starting in the fourth quarter, effectively dropping cloud sales and expenses from its Google unit. In recent months, Google had aimed to stoke advertising by not charging merchants for some promotional space and issuing grants to help other businesses buy ads. The efforts followed the company’s first sales decline (compared with a year-earlier period in the second quarter) since going public in 2004.
But the dominance of Google services has become a liability for the company too. The U.S. government last week sued the company for operating a search monopoly and stifling competition. Other regulators in the United States and elsewhere have ongoing investigations into similar allegations. The various cases could lead to Google having to divest some of its ad business in the coming years, though financial analysts doubt it will happen.
Google’s ad business accounted for 80% of Alphabet’s $46.2 billion in revenue in the third quarter. Analysts had expected $42.9 billion in revenue, or 5.9% growth from a year ago. Alphabet’s profit was $11.2 billion, or $16.40 per share, compared with the average estimate of $7.698 billion, or $11.18 per share, among analysts tracked by Refinitiv.
Google competitors Facebook , Amazon.com , and Twitter also released financial results on Thursday that were above expectations, showing how internet companies have fared well through the pandemic. Facebook shares on Thursday were up 30% this year, Amazon up 71%, and Twitter up 51%.
Alphabet’s total costs and expenses rose 12% from a year ago to $35 billion in the third quarter, compared with a 7% jump a quarter ago. Capital expenditures dropped 20% to $5.4 billion, compared with a 12% drop last quarter.
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"Huawei downplayed the Google problem in the Mate 30, but it's a major issue for consumers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/20/huawei-downplayed-the-google-problem-in-the-mate-30-but-its-a-major-issue-for-consumers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Huawei downplayed the Google problem in the Mate 30, but it’s a major issue for consumers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei Mate 30 lineup will ship without Google's apps and services Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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When Huawei finally unveiled the latest addition to its flagship smartphone lineup yesterday there were few surprises, given the many leaks in the buildup to the big day. The one thing everyone was talking about ahead of the launch event in Munich, however, was how Huawei planned to circumvent the gargantuan elephant in the room: a blanket ban on Google’s apps and services.
By way of a brief recap, Huawei was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist earlier this year that prohibits all U.S. companies from doing business with the Chinese tech giant. This meant Huawei could not use software from companies such as Google on future phones, though existing devices would still receive software updates. In effect, this ban seemed likely to push Huawei toward the open source version of Android for its new smartphones, meaning no Google Play, Gmail, YouTube, Maps, or other Google services Android users have become accustomed to.
Ahead of yesterday’s event, Google confirmed that — as expected — the Huawei Mate 30 lineup would not feature its services. However, there remained an air of doubt, with speculation that Huawei would somehow produce a magical workaround out of thin air. On stage during yesterday’s press conference, Huawei’s consumer tech CEO Richard Yu performed a big song and dance over the amazing hardware in the new flagships, but he curiously made almost no mention of the operating system that would be shipping with the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro devices.
Above: Huawei Mate 30 Similarly, in the wake of yesterday’s launch event, none of the official press materials made mention of Google or the lack of apps, and such information is also conspicuously absent from the phone’s official home on the web. This all provides us with an important clue to Huawei’s plan for addressing the billion-dollar Google problem: Keep as quiet as possible about it, and focus instead on the hardware and alternatives to Google’s services.
“This is the best-performing smartphone in the world,” said Yu in a press briefing, before briefly acknowledging the question on everyone’s mind. “Yes, we have some limitations on Google mobile services. But we have a huge advantage with the phone itself.” Beyond Google Rather than shipping with Google Play, Huawei will focus on its own App Gallery store. Here, users will be able to install popular apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, but countless other category-leading apps for work and leisure will be absent, including Dropbox, Uber, Slack, Spotify, eBay, Strava, Tinder, and Netflix.
Therefore, the nature of the “Google problem” extends much further than Google — lots of popular apps beyond Gmail et al simply aren’t available. Moreover, many dubious-looking copycat apps designed to resemble the real thing suggest that curatorial oversight in Huawei’s app store is lacking.
Above: Spotify on Huawei’s App Gallery… oh wait, no it’s not.
By underplaying the Google factor, and the lack of apps across the board, Huawei raises the real risk that people will buy or upgrade to the new Mate 30 series without realizing that they won’t be able to access Google’s hugely popular services out of the box, not to mention the dozens of other third-party apps they’re accustomed to. Many consumers will, of course, do their homework, but equally many won’t — they’ll be offered an appealing upgrade as part of their contract and assume it is effectively the same phone but with a better camera.
To put it another way: Will a 25-year-old, who typically listens to Spotify in their Uber ride to meet their Tinder date (while intermittently checking in on work through Slack and Gmail), be happy to discover that their $1,000 phone isn’t up to the task? Huawei can talk about how good its camera is until the cows come home, but without the apps, impressive specs only go so far. You only have to look back to Windows Phone for precedent. Microsoft and Nokia produced some truly great hardware in the form of Lumia phones, but they were doomed in large part by the app ecosystem failing to take off.
It’s worth noting that there are workarounds to Huawei’s Google problem. It’s possible to sideload apps, and users can access some of the services relatively easily through their browser, while alternative apps may work just fine in other cases. But this all amounts to huge friction and a sub-par experience. When people are shelling out around $1,000 for a device, they want it to work as expected.
Based on all the images and videos released so far, the new Mate 30 devices look pretty stunning, and they pack an impressive list of features. But for most consumers, it’s what on the inside that counts in the long run.
So how will Huawei market the device when it actually goes on sale in the coming weeks? Will the phones come packaged with an “Intel Inside”-style note that says something like “No Google inside”? Will salespeople be instructed to caution buyers that the Mate 30 phones pack very different apps from last year’s Mate 20 series? These are important questions, because transparency is pivotal to retaining consumer trust.
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"Canalys: Huawei smartphone sales jump 66% in China as rivals plummet | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/30/canalys-huawei-smartphone-sales-jump-66-in-china-as-rivals-plummet"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Canalys: Huawei smartphone sales jump 66% in China as rivals plummet Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei @ MWC 2019 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Huawei’s impressive growth continues in China, with patriotism likely playing a part in its smartphone sales’ domestic surge.
New figures from Canalys suggest Huawei grew its smartphone sales in China by 66% year-on-year (YoY) for Q3 2019, compared to the 31% growth it reportedly enjoyed in the previous quarter.
Digging down into the numbers also shows the stark contrast between Huawei’s fortunes and those of its main rivals, including Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Apple, each of which experienced a sharp decrease in sales.
Above: Chinese smartphone shipments growth for Q3 2019 Overall smartphone shipments remained just shy of 98 million for Q3, but Apple’s YoY decline accelerated from -14% in Q2 to -28% for Q3, while Xiaomi’s negative growth went from -20% to -33%.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! By contrast, Huawei seems to be vacuuming up its competitors’ market share, growing from 24.9% to 42.4% over the past year. This also represents a rise of more than 4 percentage points on Q2 2019.
Above: YoY market share and shipments for smartphones in China “Huawei opened a huge gap between itself and other vendors,” noted Canalys VP of mobility Nicole Peng. “It has 25% more share than this quarter’s runner-up, Vivo. Its dominant position gives Huawei a lot of power to negotiate with the supply chain and to increase its wallet share within channel partners.” While it may not be possible to pinpoint all the reasons Huawei is enjoying an uptick in a market that is more broadly in decline , the U.S. decision to place Huawei on a trade blacklist has almost certainly played a part. Many of Huawei’s retail partners in China have launched ad campaigns touting Huawei as “the patriotic choice,” according to Canalys’ Q2 report.
“The U.S.-China trade war is also creating new opportunities,” Canalys analyst Mo Jia said at the time. “Huawei’s retail partners are rolling out advertisements to link Huawei with being the patriotic choice, to appeal to a growing demographic of Chinese consumers willing to take political factors into account when making a purchase decision.” Globally, Huawei recently reported that it had passed 200 million smartphones shipped in 2019, two months earlier than it did last year. However, the full impact of the U.S. trade ban — which prevents Google from offering its version of Android and all of its apps — has yet to kick in. The trade ban only impacts new Huawei devices, and while the company did announce its new high-end Mate 30 series smartphone lineup last month , the devices have yet to go on sale outside of China.
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"Canalys: Global smartphone shipments rose 1% in Q3 2019, first growth in 2 years | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/31/canalys-global-smartphone-shipments-rose-1-in-q3-2019-first-growth-in-2-years"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Canalys: Global smartphone shipments rose 1% in Q3 2019, first growth in 2 years Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Samsung Galaxy A80 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Global smartphone shipments grew by 1% in Q3 2019, representing the first year-on-year (YoY) market increase in two years.
New figures from Canalys indicate that 352 million smartphones shipped last quarter, compared to 349 million in the corresponding period last year. The growth, while modest, bucks a trend dating back to 2017 that ushered in the smartphone industry’s first ever sales decline.
Digging down into the numbers, Samsung remains at the top of the pack, with a 2 percentage point market share increase compared to Q3 2018. However, China’s Huawei stole considerable ground from its South Korean rival, growing from 14.9% market share to 19% — just 3.4% behind Samsung.
Elsewhere, Apple’s market share fell from 13.4% to 12.3%, which translates to a 7% overall drop in smartphone shipments. This was largely due to weak sales of the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max, which launched last September.
Canalys notes that Apple’s numbers could have been lower if it had only launched two iPhones, as it normally does. It’s no secret that Apple’s iPhone sales have been declining, which is why the Cupertino company has been doubling down on its services revenue.
Above: Global smartphone shipments for Q3 2019 Samsung’s growth can be attributed to a number of factors, including more models and variety in its high-end devices — the Note10, for example, shipped with two screen sizes for the first time , in addition to a 5G version. According to Canalys, a “better price-to-spec” ratio in its mid-range Galaxy A devices also helped drive growth. This lineup included the A80, which sports a slide-up rotating camera.
Samsung also launched the A90 5G phone last month , further indicating that 5G will play a big part in manufacturers’ sales moving forward.
“5G is the next battleground for Samsung,” said Canalys research director Rushabh Doshi. “It is one of very few smartphone vendors to design its own chipsets and modems. It is not, therefore, restricted to the innovation cycle of a third-party component supplier like Qualcomm. If Samsung moves faster than Qualcomm, it can win the race to mid-range smartphones with 5G.” The trade ban Last December, Huawei made noises about catching up with Samsung by the end of 2019, and while the numbers above lend some credence to that claim, it’s unlikely to come to fruition. Last week, the Chinese company announced it had already passed 200 million smartphones in 2019, two months earlier than last year. But the full impact of the U.S. decision to place Huawei on a trade blacklist has yet to be realized. New Huawei smartphones will not be able to ship with Google’s version of Android, a restriction that will likely deter consumers from buying the devices.
Indeed, Huawei officially announced its new high-end Mate 30 series smartphone lineup last month , but the devices have yet to go on sale outside of China — a sign, perhaps, that Huawei is hoping it can somehow circumvent the ban on Google’s services.
It’s also worth noting that a knock-on effect of this trade ban has been an increase in Huawei’s domestic sales in China at the expense of rivals. So any international sales decline in the future could be offset to some degree by sales at home.
“Huawei is not out of the woods yet,” added Canalys senior analyst Ben Stanton. “Its shipments overseas in Q3 were focused on pre-Entity List models, with P30 Lite its best shipper, at close to 3 million units. But its post-Entity List models, like Mate 30, bring uncertainty because there is resistance from channels in critical overseas markets, like Europe, to support Huawei devices without Google Mobile Services.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple debuts 2020 iPhone SE with 4.7-inch screen and A13 chip for $399 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/15/apple-debuts-2020-iphone-se-with-4-7-inch-screen-and-a13-chip-for-399"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple debuts 2020 iPhone SE with 4.7-inch screen and A13 chip for $399 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Though Apple generally releases flagship-class iPhones each September and discounts older models to meet demand for more affordable devices, it occasionally creates a semi-new device to fill an upcoming size gap in its lineup. That’s the reason for today’s announcement of the 2020 iPhone SE, which like its 2016 predecessor is designed to meet demand for a less expensive, smaller-screened Apple phone.
Similar to the original iPhone SE, which largely reused the chassis of the iPhone 5S but with internal components from the iPhone 6S , the new device borrows its form from the iPhone 8 while using parts from the iPhone 11 — a strategy described in year-old rumors of the device as “old bottle, new wine.” While flagship iPhones no longer have Touch ID fingerprint scanners or Home buttons, the 2020 iPhone SE includes both, along with a 4.7-inch “Retina HD” LCD screen and A13 Bionic processor.
Apple has dominated the premium smartphone category in many parts of the world, but needs lower-cost options as well, particularly in developing countries where every rupee or yuan matters to customers. The iPhone SE gives Apple a renewed opportunity to compete with value-focused Chinese and Korean vendors, although it remains a 4G phone at a time when many rivals are switching even sub-$500 devices over to the latest 5G cellular technology.
The iPhone SE’s screen size is already small by iPhone standards, falling below the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro and 6.1-inch iPhone 11 displays , and there will likely be a similar gap after iPhone 12 models are released later this year — persistent rumors point to a 5.4-inch iPhone 12, 6.0-inch iPhone 12 Pro, and 6.6-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. That said, the SE’s display supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 video playback with a wide color gamut, and the A13 Bionic chip remains a superb application processor by mobile phone standards, with class-leading 3D rendering performance and low power consumption.
Like the iPhone 8, the new iPhone SE includes other features that aren’t immediately obvious, such as integrated Qi-capable wireless charging and IP67 water resistance, safe for 30-minute submersion at depths of up to one meter. In addition to new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) support , Apple also says the front 7-megapixel camera and rear 12-megapixel camera offer a “new camera experience,” though the changes appear to be largely based on using computational photography for digital portrait blurring and lighting effects, as well as improved HDR imagery.
The new iPhone may also improve on the iPhone 8’s battery life. Apple claimed an “up to 12 hours” run time for both the iPhone 7 and 8, but independent tests showed that they typically fell short of 10 hours for internet and calling purposes. Apple’s more efficient A13 processor could help the new model outperform its predecessors in real-world testing, though Apple promises “up to 13 hours” of video playback and “about the same as iPhone 8” overall performance.
Black, white, and red colors are available, as are three storage capacities: 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. For now, rumors of a larger version with a 5.5-inch screen, potentially called the iPhone SE Plus, don’t appear to have borne fruit; Apple is replacing both the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with the new iPhone SE.
Apple’s naming decision is likely to cause at least a little confusion. Form-fitting accessories developed for the original iPhone SE won’t work with the new model, as its screen size and body are decidedly larger than the compact, 4-inch 2016 original. The company is now referring to the new model as the “iPhone SE (2nd generation)” to differentiate it from its predecessor. In any case, accessories created for the iPhone 7 and 8 will work without issues.
The new iPhone SE will be available for preorder on April 17 and start shipping on April 24. Stepping up from 64GB to 128GB will be a $50 premium ($449 total), while the 256GB model will cost an additional $100 ($549 total).
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple reports record Q4 2019 revenue of $64 billion, aided by services | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/30/apple-reports-q4-2019-revenue-of-64-billion-helped-by-record-services"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple reports record Q4 2019 revenue of $64 billion, aided by services Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn iPhone 11 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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While Apple’s fiscal 2019 will be remembered as a year of ups and downs, growth of the company’s subscription services last quarter helped reverse serious holiday season and second quarter shortfalls.
Today, Apple announced its fourth quarter 2019 results, top-lined by revenues of $64 billion, slightly higher than the year-ago quarter: Services revenue grew sharply, while earnings from both iPhones and Macs fell somewhat below last year’s levels.
In July, Apple told analysts to expect fourth quarter revenues in the $61 to $64 billion range, with a gross margin between 37.5% and 38.5%. Ahead of the announcement, analysts expected sales of $63 billion, up only slightly from actual sales of $62.9 billion in Q4 2018, and $2.83 in estimated earnings per share, down from $2.91 one year ago. Actual earnings per share were $3.03, up 4%, though net income was down to $13.686 billion from $14.125 billion.
“We concluded a groundbreaking fiscal 2019 with our highest Q4 revenue ever, fueled by accelerating growth from Services, Wearables, and iPad,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’re very optimistic about what the holiday quarter has in store.” For the quarter, Apple says it sold $33.362 billion in iPhones, $6.991 billion in Macs, and $4.656 billion in iPads. Its combined “wearables, home and accessories” sales were $6.52 billion, while services hit $12.511 billion, another record. The numbers represent year-over-year drops for both iPhones and Macs: One year ago, iPhones were at $37.185 billion, Macs were at $7.411 billion. But the numbers are up for iPads, wearables, and services, which during last year’s quarter were at $4.089 billion, $4.234 billion, and $9.981 billion, respectively.
Geographically, net sales eased down from $15.382 billion to $14.946 billion in Europe, and similarly slid year-over-year from $11.411 billion to $11.134 billion in Greater China, as well as Japan, which fell down to $4.982 billion from $5.161 billion. However, Apple saw some improvement in the Americas, which grew to $29.322 billion from last year’s $27.517 billion of total revenues, and the Asia Pacific region, which went up to $3.656 billion from $3.429 billion in the year-ago quarter. Apple notes that international revenues accounted for 60% of its quarterly revenues.
For the first fiscal quarter of 2020, Apple is predicting revenue between $85.5 and $89.5 billion, in any case higher than its disappointing Q1 2019 holiday numbers, and possibly above its $88.3 billion 2018 holiday quarter. It also expects a gross margin between 37.5% and 38.5%, operating expenses between $9.6 and $9.8 billion, $200 million of other income, and a tax rate of 16.5%. Once again, the company is issuing a $0.77 per share cash dividend, payable on November 14 to shareholders on record as of November 11, 2019.
Today’s results come one year after Apple decided to stop reporting unit sales for key products such as iPhones, iPads, and Macs, in favor of merely reporting revenues across those categories. In prior years, the company had sold well over 200 million iPhones annually, but the numbers were expected to flatten or dip for a variety of reasons after impressive 2018 quarters.
Meanwhile, the “other products” or “wearables, home and accessories” category’s sales of wireless AirPods headphones and Apple Watches grew in dollar value without any breakdown of units sold, leaving their individual sales figures to be estimated by analysts.
The Q4 2019 numbers include early contributions from the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro , released in September, as well as the Apple Watch Series 5 and substantially discounted Series 3.
Apple has also launched multiple subscription services in recent months, including Apple News+ , Apple Card , and Apple Arcade , with Apple TV+ arriving two days from now, though early reviews have been decidedly mixed , leaving the upside for Apple somewhat unclear after significant investments in the offerings.
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"Here's why coronavirus fears may delay Apple's 5G iPhones -- again | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/09/heres-why-coronavirus-fears-may-delay-apples-5g-iphones-again"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Here’s why coronavirus fears may delay Apple’s 5G iPhones — again Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn We put the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G (left) and iPhone 11 Pro (right) to a real-world speedtest in Los Angeles.
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Two weeks after I wrote that coronavirus fears — not the virus itself — could seriously damage the tech industry this year, the world is officially in the midst of a full-blown panic over COVID-19.
Back then, 82,000 people had been infected and 2,800 had died; today, nearly 112,000 people have been infected and 3,900 have died. Additionally, at least a dozen tech events have been cancelled , travel restrictions have become more numerous, and multiple companies have asked employees to work from home rather than gathering in offices. We’re not yet at the end of this cycle, either.
Given the heartbreaking human costs, it’s hard to focus on the coronavirus’ 94% survival rate, the fact that more people have now recovered than currently have it, or on its impacts on the tech sector. But since two of my beats are Apple and 5G, I feel obliged to examine the virus’ likely impact on the first 5G iPhones, devices that are expected to expand consumer adoption of high-speed 5G cellular technology and, consequently, influence rollouts of 5G networks in several countries.
If you’ve followed Apple’s efforts to bring its first 5G iPhone to market, you know the road has been winding and bumpy.
While virtually every other smartphone maker picked Qualcomm’s 5G modem and antenna solutions , Apple backed an Intel 5G modem project that was delayed and ultimately cancelled. Then, after making an eleventh-hour deal to use Qualcomm’s modems , Apple reportedly decided to use another company’s antennas , adding another round of last-minute engineering hurdles ahead of manufacturing.
Recent reports suggest that the coronavirus situation has added another wrinkle: Travel restrictions have supposedly precluded Apple engineers from finishing tests required before 5G iPhone manufacturing can commence. Though “new iPhone will be delayed” reports like this come out every year and often amount to nothing, they’re sometimes true, and this one’s easy to believe given the coronavirus’ established disruptions.
The latest prediction is a one- to two-month delay for the new iPhone models, which if accurate would push them from their standard September release into October or November.
This could have some impact on Apple and Apple supplier earnings, as new phone revenues would otherwise begin at the end of the third calendar quarter before growing dramatically during the holiday quarter. Assuming Apple manages manufacturing delays as it has in the past, some countries will wait longer than others to get the new phones, and as Apple executives tend to say, “demand could continue to outstrip supply” for months in countries where the devices are supposedly available for purchase. In other words, Apple devotees will have to wait even longer to get access to 5G technology, which Android early adopters have been using since early last year, with a mix of whoa , nice , and hmm results.
Above: Gartner: Apple was No. 3 in worldwide smartphone sales to end users in 2019 (measured in thousands of units).
Will a 5G iPhone delay have broader implications for the mobile industry? I suspect the answer is simultaneously yes and no. On one hand, there’s every reason to believe that the mobile industry will now miss analysts’ 2020 sales targets , which projected 0-1% unit sales growth this year, since 4G and 5G iPhone demand was expected to contribute significantly to keeping industry-wide sales at least flat. This will consequently be a slower year for smartphone sales than was previously hoped.
But on the other hand, a brief iPhone delay is unlikely to slow down 5G network build-outs, if it has any impact on them at all. I mention that because some of Apple’s most ardent defenders have claimed that 3G and 4G networks really didn’t matter to customers until iPhones arrived to take advantage of them, and there’s admittedly some evidence to back up that claim. Almost no one can name the 3G and 4G smartphones that arrived before Apple introduced the iPhone 3G or the 4G-capable iPhone 5. Moreover, U.S. carriers openly said ahead of the iPhone 5’s launch that they were bracing their networks for additional demands, as iPhone users tended to disproportionately gobble up data.
Putting aside how Android smartphones and networks have evolved since then, it’s worth noting that network build-outs are planned many months if not full years in advance, and even a two-month iPhone delay would neither eliminate the need for new 5G tower hardware nor reduce the pressure on U.S. carriers to have nationwide networks available in time for the launch. There’s also plenty of demand for 5G devices from carriers outside the U.S., including China and South Korea — each home to multiple fully functional 5G networks — and Japan, which is about to launch its first 5G network ahead of the Olympics, with similar networks growing in parts of Europe and Australia, as well.
While U.S. customers might not be thrilled with their 5G network options or performance at this point, all three of the major carriers have promised major improvements this year. Outside the U.S., a combination of markedly faster network speeds and falling handset prices have bolstered demand for 5G devices, helping Samsung and multiple Chinese vendors in the process. 5G network buildouts are continuing across the world, led by companies such as Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung, as Huawei continues to have a role in some countries.
(Thus far, the coronavirus doesn’t appear to have had as much of an impact on handset rivals’ manufacturing as on Apple’s, but that could be attributable to less vendor disclosure, smaller production scale, or both. The situation with 5G base station manufacturing was something of a question mark even before the coronavirus hit China, and it remains fuzzy today.) So there’s a good chance that many major countries will have 5G networks in place for the iPhone launch. The question is whether Apple will be able to deliver devices for them. As I said three weeks ago, when it appeared that Apple might be cutting things too close with 5G iPhone production, risking a slow start to manufacturing: That might be enough to restrict initial supplies of the affected iPhones and possibly create the sort of regional and model-specific availability challenges we haven’t seen in some time. And that’s assuming there’s no last-minute or post-launch snafu with antenna performance … all it would take is some undiscovered glitch in design or manufacturing to mess up 5G performance, seriously undercutting the iPhone’s speed and parity compared with Android rivals.
At this point, I hope that the new iPhones deliver a breakthrough 5G experience that’s worth all the reported extra wrangling. It would be a shame if the first 5G iPhones merely deliver feature parity with Android devices released much earlier. Regardless of how the most die-hard iPhone fans react, other users may realize that they didn’t gain much by waiting on Apple’s solution, putting Samsung and its other competitors in a stronger position to capitalize on future major technology transitions. But if the iPhones bring their A game this year and show up on time, 2020 could end on a happier note than where we all are right now.
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"Apple: Coronavirus hurt Q2 2020 earnings, but teams rose to challenges | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/30/apple-coronavirus-hit-q2-2020-earnings-but-teams-rose-to-challenges"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple: Coronavirus hurt Q2 2020 earnings, but teams rose to challenges Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Following today’s release of Apple earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2020 , CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri held a conference call with financial analysts to discuss the results, which — as disclosed by the company in advance — missed initial guidance offered before the U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 cases but just barely eked out a revenue increase over the same quarter in 2019.
Cook began his remarks by discussing the impacts of the coronavirus on Apple, characterizing the situation as massively challenging — enough to make the quarter short of where it could have been financially but one that he couldn’t have been prouder of, thanks to his employees’ resilience. Early in the quarter, Apple believed it was on track to hit the high end of its estimates and achieve a new revenue record. But that shifted as the outbreak became a pandemic, disrupting work and life across the U.S. and other countries.
But Cook said Apple employees rose to the occasion, simultaneously turning out next-generation devices and sourcing over 30 million masks for frontline medical workers. The company is now producing 1 million of its own protective shields each week and continues to make donations to global and U.S. coronavirus relief funds. It also elevated reliable COVID-19 news within Apple News, produced content on the topic with Oprah and Lady Gaga, and developed both a symptom-checking website that has seen 2 million users and an app that’s had 3 million downloads. He also noted Apple’s cooperation with Google on an exposure notification system, which resulted this week in updates to the iOS and Android operating systems.
Despite the outbreak’s impact on the company’s global supply chain, Cook said Apple’s manufacturing was effectively back on track as of the end of March. Maestri noted that the company encountered some temporary shortages but said the operations team and manufacturing partners “put forth an extraordinary effort” to return to normalcy.
On the consumer side, shoppers effectively moved their Apple purchases straight from brick-and-mortar stores to the company’s website, and retail had a quarterly record during this quarter despite the physical store closures — an online purchasing trend Cook isn’t sure will continue once people are able to go out in public. For now, with device users stuck at home, the company has unsurprisingly seen record daily use of its FaceTime and iMessage services during the quarter.
In remarks to Bloomberg coinciding with today’s earnings release, Cook said the company will begin reopening roughly 20 total stores across Austria and Australia within two weeks, as well as a few U.S. stores during the same period. The company’s campus in Cupertino, California will not reopen until early June at the earliest.
While Apple isn’t providing broad guidance for the third fiscal quarter, Maestri suggested that currency challenges and overall market weakness will lead to revenue declines for the iPhone and wearables and potentially impact some services revenue. However, the declines should be understood within a larger context: Apple’s wearables segment alone has already reached the size of a standalone Fortune 140 company, which is to say around $22 billion in annual revenue. This is also traditionally the quarter ahead of new flagship iPhone and Apple Watch releases, so sales are often slow.
On the other hand, the company believes iPad and Mac sales should improve over the coming quarter, perhaps buoyed by the new iPad Pro and latest MacBook Air.
Cook suggested gains may be attributable to customers needing these categories of devices for remote work and online education.
When asked about Apple’s continued R&D efforts, Maestri called out the company’s purchase of Intel’s 5G modem baseband group as an investment in a core technology and said Apple will continue to invest in development. Nothing has changed on the company’s M&A side, Apple said, and it’s always looking for ways to accelerate its product roadmaps and fill gaps in its portfolio in hardware, software, and services.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple's WWDC20 keynote schedule shows a focus on software and platforms | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/11/apples-wwdc20-keynote-schedule-shows-a-focus-on-software-and-platforms"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple’s WWDC20 keynote schedule shows a focus on software and platforms Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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In early May, Apple announced that it was still planning to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, but had opted to shift from an in-person event to an all-digital format due to the coronavirus pandemic. Today, the company released the official WWDC20 schedule through its Apple Developers app and website, and the standout element is a pair of keynotes on June 22 — a large block of time allotted for a traditional 10 a.m. Pacific time Special Event keynote aimed at a broad audience, followed by a streaming 2 p.m. State of Platforms keynote targeted at developers. The two streams will likely consume a major part of the first day, with over 100 sessions set to air through June 26.
Apple says that the initial keynote will focus on “software updates and innovations,” underscoring the traditionally hardware-light nature of the event. The company annually uses WWDC to announce its biggest upcoming changes to all of its operating systems, now spanning macOS and iPadOS on the computer side, iOS and watchOS for smaller devices, and tvOS for the Apple TV platform. Major related updates to its cross-platform development tool Xcode and server-side services, such as the AI assistant Siri, are also highly likely to be unveiled at this year’s event.
While hardware generally isn’t the major focus of WWDC, the event is an opportunity for Apple to unveil devices or accessories that have been awaiting release and — rarely — platform-wide architecture shifts that will impact developers. This year’s event is expected to include the first official details of a long-rumored Mac platform shift from Intel- to Apple-developed processors, potentially enabling developers to order transitional ARM Mac dev kits ahead of a 2021 consumer release.
Mac-focused ARM processors are expected to be even more powerful than those used in the latest iPad Pros, which already rival upper midrange PC laptops in power.
The schedule is available now through the Apple Developer app for iOS and iPadOS, as well as Apple’s WWDC20 section of the developer.apple.com subdomain.
Apple plans to announce the winners of its Swift Student Challenge, offering up to 350 students free Developer memberships and WWDC20 jackets, on June 16.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Apple confirms Mac transition to ARM CPUs, Rosetta 2 Intel emulation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/22/apple-confirms-mac-transition-to-arm-cpus"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple confirms Mac transition to ARM CPUs, Rosetta 2 Intel emulation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Tim Cook announced Apple's transition to ARM-powered Mac computers at WWDC in June.
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Apple’s plan to move its Mac family of computers from Intel’s Core-series CPUs to self-developed ARM processors has been an open secret for years , with each new macOS release — and subsequent small hints to developers — helping to ease the eventual transition. Today, Apple made the impending switch official , letting developers and customers know during its WWDC 2020 keynote that it will start the chip transition to Apple silicon this year.
The company’s recent struggles with Intel chips are well documented, reportedly including the redesign of entire laptops, thermal performance controversies , and even postponing its first 5G iPhones due to chip development problems. Meanwhile, Apple’s internal chip teams forged ahead with industry-leading smartphone and tablet chips, setting the stage for ARM-powered laptops. Apple chip lead Johny Srouji notes that the X-suffix processors built for the iPad now deliver 1,000 times the graphics performance of the original model after just 10 years, while the Apple Watch has achieved best-in-class performance for its size. The company has delivered 2 billion total system-on-chip (SoC) processors since it began producing its own CPUs.
Performance alone is just one advantage Apple will achieve, Srouji says; other benefits will include better power management, a superior Secure Enclave, and higher performance GPU than before — plus Neural Engine improvements for AI. There will be a family of Mac-specific SoCs, using a common architecture across all of Apple’s product lines.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! If there was any question whether Apple could make a Mac-caliber processor, that was extinguished with the 2018 release of the third-generation iPad Pro.
Backed by the Apple A12X Bionic chip, that model roughly matched the performance of Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro laptops in single- and multi-core tests; graphics compute benchmarks were roughly equivalent to Microsoft’s Xbox One S console.
Initially, Apple will transition developers over to the new ARM chip using the same A12Z Bionic chip found in the latest 2020 iPad Pro.
Released in March, the 2020 iPad Pro delivers around 10% better GPU performance than its 2018 predecessor, but much bigger changes are likely in store for the unnamed Mac-specific chips. It appears increasingly likely that those chips will have their own name, separate from the A-series branding of iPhone and iPad processors.
Above: Tomb Raider running under emulation on a Mac with Apple silicon.
To support old and new apps, Apple will use Rosetta 2, integrated emulation software, to enable ARM-based Macs to run Intel code. In the prior PowerPC to Intel transition, Apple used Rosetta to let PowerPC apps run with performance compromises on new Intel machines, but Apple says the performance should be much faster for Intel apps running on ARM Macs. Additionally, ARM Macs will be able to run unmodified iPadOS and iOS apps, however, Intel Macs will not be able to do so unless the iPadOS and iOS apps are updated.
Apple says that it will ship its first ARM Mac by the end of 2020, and plans for a two-year full transition. It’s worth noting that similar language was used ahead of the Intel switchover in 2005, but Apple completed the move “ahead of schedule” in only a year. In the interim, developers will have access to an A12Z-based Mac mini Developer Transition Kit. The machine will include 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for storage, but will not be available to regular consumers.
The decision to take the hard road of releasing a developer-only ARM Mac is particularly interesting given the easier alternative — enabling an off-the-shelf iPad with similar components (and a Magic Keyboard accessory) to run macOS instead. Although this might have thrilled the millions of people who have hoped for years to see an Apple tablet with the choice between macOS and iPad OS options, Apple apparently doesn’t want to give iPad users false hope for such a device, or possibly tip its hand by letting developers play with a touchscreen or convertible form factor Mac when no such option is available in its laptop lineup.
This just-for-developers platform follows the same strategy Apple employed with the Intel-based DTK 15 years ago, when it placed a small but powerful Pentium 4 motherboard inside its prior PowerMac G5 casing, and offered a custom Mac operating system — 10.4.1 — that could run PowerPC apps under emulation on Intel’s chips. While the first Intel Macs actually launched with superior, next-generation Core-series processors, the DTK let developers experience worst-case legacy app performance, and hopefully do better before the consumer Mac release.
Apple required all Intel DTK units to be returned after one year, giving developers the first Intel-based iMac in exchange — a policy that led most of the leased development hardware to disappear, with relatively few remaining units winding up in collectors’ hands. We’ll have to see whether the ARM-based version becomes a similarly obscure collectible.
Interested developers can apply for the Mac mini Developer Transition Kit hardware starting this week. The Kit will come with a beta version of macOS Big Sur for testing purposes and cost $500, with the requirement that the DTK be returned “at the end of the program” — potentially for a more powerful Mac mini with final Mac-specific silicon inside.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Apple debuts macOS Big Sur with all-new design, ARM support | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/22/apple-debuts-macos-10-16-big-sur-with-all-new-design"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple debuts macOS Big Sur with all-new design, ARM support Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Over the past two years, macOS Mojave and Catalina gently evolved to aid developers in creating universal apps for Macs and iPads, including Apple internal and then third-party use of the cross-platform Catalyst framework. Today, Apple is taking another major step with the release of macOS Big Sur , which will be the first version to support Apple-developed ARM processors for Macs.
The latest update continues Apple’s use of California landmarks to brand macOS releases. Big Sur is a large stretch of intentionally undeveloped coastline in central California, notable for its access to forests, beaches, and numerous picturesque locales that haven’t been damaged by human development. During its presentation, Apple showed off an About screen indicating that this is macOS 11 — the first step beyond the numerous “Mac OS X” or macOS 10 releases that preceded it. Though Apple’s initial developer download for the release lists it as “macOS Beta 10.16,” and the first Big Sur beta reports itself to apps as macOS 10.16, the “About this Mac” screen and Apple have confirmed that the long-awaited version number 11 is correct.
Apple has redesigned the macOS user interface significantly, borrowing many iOS and iPadOS design cues to create multi-pane and glyph consistency across platforms. While macOS icons have been updated to bring back some 3D shadowing and depth — removed from Apple products years ago in a post-Steve Jobs purge — most of the other elements, such as a revised Control Center with flat-shaded controls, now look substantially like similar features on the iPhone or iPad.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Widgets that were introduced for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 earlier today are also coming to the Mac, enabling simple but highly useful features such as weather, package, and time tracking to be handled with persistent mini-apps rather than requiring the launch of individual full-fledged apps. At this point, it’s unclear whether the same widget code will work across platforms. On the Mac, widgets will be available from within Notifications Center, rather than sitting on the desktop.
Messages is being updated with Memoji stickers, effects, pinned conversations synced across devices, and groups enhancements — much more in line with the revised iOS and iPadOS apps. Maps is being wholly redesigned for the Mac, including access to city-specific Guides, Look Around browsing on a computer screen, and Cycling directions, among other features.
Catalyst, Apple’s cross-platform development initiative for iPadOS and macOS, will allow developers to optimize apps to take advantage of all the pixels of a Mac screen, as well as getting more access to HomeKit and ClassKit, improved popovers, and photo editing extensions.
Safari has been updated with speed improvements and privacy protections, as well as visual flourishes. For the first time, Safari users will be able to set a background within Safari itself, mimicking rival browsers, and get a hover-over view that lets you see the contents of each tab without clicking through to it.
Interestingly, Apple has added a Privacy Report button that shows how individual sites are tracking you, within a single button press, and the app now runs 50% faster than Chrome, according to the company. New extensions are being added, as well, with an extension store for developers — plus granular access controls so users can limit how the extensions work. Safari will also be able to do live webpage translations, similar to what was unveiled for iOS 14 earlier today.
macOS Big Sur will also include support for ARM CPUs.
Apple says that Microsoft and Adobe have already developed ARM-compatible versions of their Mac apps — including Word, Excel, and Photoshop — as has Apple, which already has all of its Mac integrated apps and Final Cut Pro running natively. Third-party developers will be able to use an Apple developer transition kit to create compatible code ahead of the release of ARM Macs, the first of which is expected by the end of this year.
Intel Mac apps will be able to run on ARM Macs using Big Sur’s Rosetta 2, an emulator developed by Apple; moreover, unmodified iOS and iPadOS applications will also run on ARM Macs using virtualization. However, Mac, iOS, and iPadOS ARM apps will not run directly on Intel-based machines without Xcode 12 updates.
macOS Big Sur is available today to registered developers , and available in public beta in July. Apple’s developer toolkit Xcode 12 is also available now for Macs here.
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"Hands-on: Apple's macOS Big Sur, iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 | VentureBeat"
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Each year, Apple releases the first betas of its new operating systems at WWDC, and I brave the potentially bumpy install processes to let you know whether it’s safe to consider doing the same. That means I have to make the difficult decision of whether to install the earliest betas on my personal devices — I say yes to a given beta if there are new features that really interest me and I’m pretty confident that the installation won’t spend weeks wrecking my normal daily use of a given device.
After this year’s WWDC20 keynote, I knew that I wanted to install macOS Big Sur , iOS 14 , and iPadOS 14 immediately, as each one included a few new things of serious interest.
watchOS 7 was a comparative curiosity that I could either install or live without. And tvOS 14 barely registered on the radar.
I wound up putting four of the five new beta OSes on my daily driver devices, and have been using them for the last day so you don’t have to take the risk — or can jump in if you’re as intrigued as I was. Whether you’re a developer planning to dive into one or all of Apple’s platforms, or a business considering a move to or from Apple’s devices this year, here are the big takeaways for each platform.
macOS Big Sur You can almost picture Apple’s fall 2020 marketing campaign already: “This OS goes to 11.” After 19 years of Mac OS X (restyled macOS 10) releases, the company finally pulled the trigger and officially moved macOS to version 11, a symbolically major step forward for the Mac platform. If you’re downloading the first beta, you might notice “macOS 10.16” references here and there, such as during the initial download or when third-party apps reference the OS version, but Apple has confirmed that it’s supposed to be macOS 11.
I’ve tested most of the macOS betas Apple has released over the years, and Big Sur is one of the most visually jarring — in generally good ways. It recalls the 2014-2015 releases of Yosemite and El Capitan (10.10-11), where Apple shifted Macs to the “flat” visual theme from iOS devices, and similarly feels decidedly different from the first moment it appears on screen. After spending hours with Big Sur, the differences turn out to be mostly skin deep, but it’s obvious that Apple really wants to unify its platforms behind a consistent design language at the same time as it’s debuting “Apple silicon” processors.
One welcome surprise: the return of icons with pre-iOS 7 3D depth and shading. I hated Apple’s shift to completely flat icons, and have felt for years that shadows were both a practical and beautiful way to make visual elements pop on 2D displays. Big Sur has refreshed many of the Mac’s icons with shadow details, and they almost all look better for the change.
Other OS-level tweaks to window corner radiuses give included apps a more bubbly feel, and introduce more of the translucent panes previously seen in iOS and macOS. Control Center on the Mac now resembles the iOS/iPadOS feature, albeit with better labeling and less reliance on icons alone to identify features.
Big Sur’s Finder feels like it’s been substantially rewritten ahead of the Intel to ARM transition, and could still be a work in progress. Icon spacing in the menu bar feels too loose, font sizes and line spacing are a little awkward (particularly when you switch display resolutions), and the title/icon bars for windows have been rebalanced in ways that feel foreign at first, but have clear space-saving intentions. Core apps such as Mail and Messages have similarly been rebuilt with the same benefits — greater iOS/iPadOS/macOS consistency — and spacing issues. Apple usually uses the beta cycle to fine tune macOS elements like these, so I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll tighten up and improve by the time Big Sur goes final in the fall.
Safari is seemingly the core app that scored the deepest improvements in this year’s macOS release: Apple says it’s now 50% faster than Google’s Chrome, has a more privacy-focused sandbox for third-party extensions, and includes Privacy Report features that instantly reveal how websites are tracking you. A shield icon now appears prominently to the left of Safari’s address bar, in one click spotlighting the number of trackers, then revealing their names with a second click.
A circled “I” info button lets you see aggregated statistics across multiple sites, sorted either by the sites or the trackers, with statistics on how many sites are using the given trackers. Apple is apparently already blocking cross-site tracking across several networks, and using simple, clear markings to shame sites into reducing or eliminating their reliance on invasive tracking. We’ll have to see whether this initiative works, or just leads ad networks to develop new alternatives, which has historically been the case.
One last note on a big change that’s under the hood: Though there’s no way to test this yet, Big Sur will be the first version of macOS to include support for ARM CPUs — “Apple Silicon,” as it’s now being called — as well as the Rosetta 2 emulation system for running Intel Mac apps on ARM devices. You can get all the details in my earlier articles here and here.
As first developer betas go, macOS Big Sur is fairly typical in the stability department: If you want to install it, expect random crashes and the occasional rendering issue to interrupt regular workflows. I’ve experienced multiple crashes with Safari and Mail, but thus far no problems with third-party apps except for one from Google, which boots to a “fatal error” dialog box. Thanks to the redesign, even crash notifications look nice in Big Sur. Unless you’re a developer, my advice is to wait for the first public beta in July so you won’t see as many of them.
iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 Last year, Apple split iOS into two versions — iPadOS for iPads, and iOS for iPhones (and iPods). The stated reason was to give iPads the opportunity to grow as their own separate platform with features that wouldn’t necessarily come to iPhones, and although that was somewhat unsettling at the time, I heard through the grapevine that it was just marketing; branding aside, not much would actually change.
Fast forward a year to iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and there’s even less of an obvious reason to have split the platforms than there was in 2019. They look the same, feel the same, and substantially do the same things. Virtually all of the new iOS features also came to iPadOS, and when Apple’s Craig Federighi separately introduced major new features in iPadOS, he noted that some of them were coming to iOS as well. My sense is that the iPhone/iPad division was really introduced to set 2019 consumer expectations about which platform’s apps would be easy to bring to macOS with Catalyst (iPad) and which ones wouldn’t (iPhone), thus requiring a new macOS (Big Sur) and chip platform (Apple Silicon).
That having been said, the single biggest change to iOS 14 is the addition of widgets — a feature that also exists in iPadOS 14, but has less of an impact. For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept, a widget is akin to a small window into a webpage, providing live or frequently updated information. They’ve historically been used to heighten productivity by offering a quick glance at package delivery status, news, stocks, or sports scores without taking you away from your device’s desktop or Home screen.
Widgets can occupy the square space of four icons, the rectangular space of eight icons, or the large square space of 16 icons — a user can pick the size (and corresponding amount of displayable information) that fits the desired space. On iOS, widgets can be inserted into the grid of any Home screen page. iPadOS 14 currently restricts widgets to the Today View sidebar introduced last year in version 13, a major bummer that will hopefully be resolved in a future update.
Widgets were a great idea on Mac OS X, well before they appeared on Android, and spent a decade as an embarrassingly persistent omission for iOS once they became common across Android home screens. The new iOS 14 implementation works — there aren’t many widgets yet to choose from, but they look nice, perform as expected, and even let you create scrollable stacks that can turn one widget-reserved block into a place to quickly check multiple widgets. They fold into iOS 14’s Home screens so effortlessly and plainly that one can only wonder why Apple waited so long to implement the feature. As better widgets emerge, I expect every iOS user will want to use them, and iPadOS users will envy the superior integration.
Another tentpole addition this year is a new app, Translate, which thus far only appears on iOS 14 beta. Gunning directly for the Google Translate app, Apple’s version provides access to 10 languages in addition to English, allowing users to type or speak phrases from one language to convert into another. Apple touts secure, on-device translation as an advantage, and enables users to look up individual words in a dictionary with only one tap. But Google’s app supports far more languages and also includes an option for offline translation, as well as handwriting recognition, camera-based text, and bidirectional conversational translations. iOS 14’s Translate is a nice new option, but feels like Apple brought a knife to a gun fight — it will be more interesting if and when the translation features are integrated into Safari.
By comparison with widgets and Translate, other cross iOS/iPadOS improvements fall largely into the “iterative” category. Messages has been updated with pinned conversations, threaded replies, and other features to make group conversations easier to manage. Most of the tweaks are so seamlessly integrated that they feel less substantial than they are; it’s easy to pin a conversation for easy future access, or quickly determine from an enlarged icon size which member of a group has most recently responded. Apple’s custom avatar feature, Memoji, was also upgraded with more customization options and preset “stickers,” though not as many new choices as kids (and some adults) might have hoped for.
iPadOS is getting one key improvement of its own this year, and that’s Scribble, an updated handler for Apple Pencil interactions. Scribble enables the iPad to instantly open Notes and begin taking drawing or writing input when the Lock screen is tapped with the Pencil, and also parses Pencil gestures more intelligently than before. You can scribble atop text to delete it, circle text to select it, separate or join words by drawing a line between them, and insert words by tapping and holding on an empty part of a text field.
Apple notes that handwriting recognition has been improved, and iPadOS can now identify and separately handle handwritten text within combined graphical/text notes. But the most important change is that the Pencil is becoming a persistent input solution — something users can continue holding to not only navigate the OS, but also to use for filling in text fields and switching between creating/editing content. As a longtime Pencil owner who has used the first- and second-generation versions less than I’ve wanted due to OS-level limitations, I’m looking forward to revisiting the accessory more deeply with the new Scribble features.
Apple is also adding slide-over sidebars to more iPad apps, building on a cross Mac-iPad feature that showed up in last year’s News app. Sidebars allow apps to fill the screen with content most of the time, eliminating bottom-of-screen tabs in favor of list-style selection choices that disappear whenever they’re not needed. It’s not exactly a world-changing feature, but gives iPad developers an easier route to port over Mac apps with left-side lists, and Mac developers a way to shoehorn laptop-like menus and feature depth into the tablet UI.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of all the changes to iOS and iPadOS; in addition to some forgettable new wallpapers, there are lots of little “refinement” tweaks, including wonderfully minimalist new phone/FaceTime call notifications and Siri pop-ups that finally don’t obscure the whole screen. (The new Siri UI is particularly futuristic thanks to a beautiful little animation.) Once again, users will welcome these long-awaited improvements and, given that they’ve been prominent in request lists and concept sketches for years, wonder why they took so long to happen.
I’m also very happy about something tiny Apple has added to iOS and iPadOS — a little status bar dot indicating when the front-facing camera is active (green) or on and not active (orange). After last year’s Group FaceTime privacy flaw revealed that some iOS devices were streaming video and audio without the user’s knowledge or permission, the addition of this simple indicator should provide users with a proper sense of whether the camera is or isn’t active.
The iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 betas have thus far been entirely smooth sailing, with no crashes that I can recall — better for a “beta 1” than some earlier iOS releases. I’d call them safe to install as early as you’re comfortable doing so. Apple’s first public betas will be out in July.
watchOS 7 Of all Apple’s betas, the one that traditionally worries me the most is watchOS, as the earliest versions had the deadly combination of battery drain and unpredictable bugs, mixed with wild new features that were enticing enough to take the risk. With watchOS 7, the story is completely different: The first beta release offers very little feature-level enticement to jump in, but seems quite stable, and will even have a public beta in July — the first time Apple is officially opening watchOS betas to general users.
I won’t mince words: watchOS 7 isn’t a very impressive update, though I suspect that some of the issue is that features are being held close to the chest for debut alongside Apple Watch Series 6 in the fall. Apple revealed a total of one new watch face, Chronograph Pro, which includes a time/distance-measuring dial called a tachymeter — yet another niche feature seemingly aimed at the “watch enthusiast” crowd Apple has been chasing for years. It also enabled third-party apps to offer more than one “complication” — those tiny button-like displays — on a single watch face.
Instead of announcing the watch face feature people really want — a way to install third-party faces — Apple instead enables users to share watchOS’ old, limited complication and color customizations with friends using Messages links, which will also be shareable via social media. This is the sort of charmless feature that I can only hope is Apple awkwardly setting the stage for users to virally spread the word about new faces people will actually care about, though I’m getting tired of waiting. The only other rumored new watchOS 7 face, an International option with changing flag faces, didn’t materialize in the first beta, so we’ll have to wait and see whether anything more is planned.
One persistent rumor that finally panned out with watchOS 7 was the similarly belated addition of sleep tracking to the wearable platform. There’s now a dedicated Sleep app (with a not very good bed icon) on the Apple Watch, linked to the iPhone’s Health app for synchronization of data regarding your preferred sleep goal, schedule, and alarms, plus data on whether you were in bed and/or asleep at given points in the night. I’ll put aside the issue of whether Apple Watches are really up to the task of doing anything overnight given that they’re still only rated for 18 hours of continuous use — a more complicated topic than one might imagine — and say that it’s nice to see the feature, anyway.
I wish I could tell you how well it works, but when I set it up and tried to use it overnight, it didn’t appear to do anything — no data was recorded or transferred to the iPhone’s Health app, and though I woke up four minutes early, the morning alarm I normally use on my iPad still went off at its regular time. My guess is that the Sleep app still needs some polish, which it will surely receive before the official debut later this fall.
Another watchOS addition mentioned in Apple’s keynote, a hand washing tracker, also appears in the beta but doesn’t seem to be working properly. Rather than appearing as an app, “handwashing” appears as an option under Settings, with the option to automatically turn on a 20-second timer, and either use or disable haptics in some way. Across multiple attempts yesterday and today, I couldn’t get the watch to automatically detect when I was washing my hands — sink noises and hand movements were apparently not enough to trigger Apple’s machine learning model — so the UI shown in the video never appeared. Once again, I suspect this will improve before watchOS 7 goes final.
Above: Siri’s moving, glowing ball icon has come over to watchOS 7, but still occupies the full screen rather than only the bottom — something iOS and iPadOS fixed this year.
There’s not much else at this point to justify upgrading to the beta version watchOS 7, unless you’re interested in testing the new Dance tracking feature in the old Workout app (soon to be renamed Fitness), and have an Apple Watch that supports the update — Series 1 and 2 will not run the new OS. Extra features that some people were expecting, such as support for blood oxygen monitoring, or additional battery life for truly worry-free sleep tracking, may show up this year with the Series 6. Here’s hoping for further improvements as the beta cycle continues.
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"Apple's Q3 2020 revenue hits record $59.7 billion, stock will split 4:1 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/30/apples-q3-2020-revenue-hits-record-59-7-billion-stock-will-split-41"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple’s Q3 2020 revenue hits record $59.7 billion, stock will split 4:1 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn CEO Tim Cook talking at Apple's first virtual WWDC event Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Three months ago, Apple missed its initial revenue target for the second quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but was still up slightly over the prior year’s quarter — a surprising feat enabled by a rapid and nearly complete shift to online sales, as well as growing demand for devices to accommodate working and studying from home. Today, the company announced its fiscal third-quarter results, top-lined by a record $59.7 billion in revenue, which was notably achieved despite avoiding advance earnings predictions for the quarter.
Analysts generally expected store closures and other COVID-19-related difficulties to negatively impact Apple’s revenues and earnings per share (EPS), with consensus estimates of roughly 3% year-over-year drops. This would have reflected a fall from 2019’s record $53.8 billion in revenues to $52.25 billion for the third fiscal quarter of 2020, with EPS dropping from $2.18 to $2.04. But in what has become a pattern, Apple beat the estimates handily.
Apple’s revenues were actually up roughly 11% over the year-ago quarter, and EPS jumped to $2.58, an increase of 18% that was due in part to share buybacks. Despite continued fears of a prolonged global recession impacted by COVID-19 closures, Apple still saw international sales contribute 60% to its revenue and growth across all of its geographic segments. Year over year, revenues grew from $25.056 billion to $27.018 billion in the Americas, $11.925 billion to $14.173 billion in Europe, and $9.157 billion to $9.329 billion in Greater China. They also went from $4.082 billion to $4.966 billion in Japan and from $3.589 billion to $4.199 billion in the Asia Pacific region.
The third fiscal quarter wasn’t huge for new Apple product releases, but the company did release the 2020 iPhone SE , the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro , and a Magic Keyboard-updated version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro , following late second-quarter updates to the MacBook Air and iPad Pro, all of which contributed to the quarter’s revenue tallies. Software was the big focus of Apple’s annual WWDC developers conference in late June, pointing to major new hardware updates across several of its device families during the next two quarters.
iPhone sales were up to $26.418 billion from the year-ago quarter’s $25.986 billion, Mac sales were up to $7.079 billion from $5.82 billion, and iPad sales grew to $6.582 billion from $5.023 billion. Combined “wearables, home, and accessories” sales went up to $6.45 billion from $5.525 billion, and services climbed to $13.156 billion from $11.455 billion. Three of the categories also represented gains over the prior quarter, when Apple took in $5.351 billion from Macs, $4.368 billion from iPads, and $6.284 billion from wearables and accessories, though they dipped from fiscal Q2’s $28.962 billion from iPhones and $13.348 billion from services. Except for major milestones, the company no longer discloses unit sales for any of its product lines.
As Apple’s stock price is presently in the $385 per share range, the company announced today that it will split each share by 4:1 “to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors.” The split will be based on shares held as of August 24, 2020, and trading under the new price will take place on August 31. Apple is also offering a $0.82 cash dividend per share to shareholders as of the close of business on August 10, 2020.
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"Apple crosses $2 trillion market cap as world's most valuable company | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/19/apple-crosses-2-trillion-market-cap-as-worlds-most-valuable-company"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple crosses $2 trillion market cap as world’s most valuable company Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Just two years after becoming the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization , Apple has officially doubled its valuation to $2 trillion. This remarkable feat means it’s tied with a non-tech firm for bragging rights to the title of world’s most valuable company — for now.
The $2 trillion market cap is based on Apple’s stock breaking a price of $467.77 per share, multiplied by the company’s most recent report of 4,275,634,000 outstanding shares.
Prior to Apple hitting the official milestone today, shares were trading in the $464 range, flirting with $467 before briefly pushing to $467.97, and later to $468.65. Apple’s own Stocks app first showed a $2 trillion intraday valuation as of 10:49 a.m. Eastern; the stock’s final closing price for the day will be determined after the NASDAQ exchange closes at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
Apple is technically the second company to reach the $2 trillion level, as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company — also known as Saudi Aramco — first hit that number in December 2019 on the strength of then-solid demand for fossil fuels. Aramco’s valuation was subsequently reduced by COVID-19-related travel declines and falling oil prices, as well as skepticism over the value of its assets, such that its market cap recently hovered near $1.8 trillion (6.68 trillion Saudi riyals). But the oil producer returned to the $2 trillion mark shortly before Apple came within striking distance of its prior record. By contrast, Apple’s closest tech company rivals — Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft — all crossed the $1 trillion mark after Apple, but today their market caps trail the Cupertino company’s by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Despite the global pandemic, Apple has generated remarkably strong revenues over the past two quarters, and analysts expect the company’s good times to continue for the foreseeable future. Macs and iPads have both seen upticks as customers sought work-from-home and school-from-home solutions, while Apple’s media streaming, warranty, and payment processing services have continued to grow at a brisk pace. Updates to the popular iPhone and Apple Watch are expected this fall , only slightly off the normal September schedule, with the first new ARM-based “Apple Silicon” Macs following soon after.
Apple has also announced it will split its stock by a 4:1 ratio , making shares available on August 31 for a quarter of their prior price — a move that will allow new investors to buy in, likely fueling another round of steady growth undaunted by questions about the company’s future in China, one of its largest markets. Despite cooperating with the Chinese government , Apple has faced the threat of trade-related restrictions due to the Trump administration’s saber rattling , which has imperiled both its hardware production and sales in the region.
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"Apple announces September 15 date for Apple Watch and iPad event (updated) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/08/apple-announces-september-15-date-for-online-iphone-12-reveal-event"
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Though this year’s iPhone launches will be delayed by a few weeks relative to their traditional late September street dates, Apple isn’t stopping its annual fall hype train from leaving the station this month. The company announced today that a media event will indeed take place on September 15, roughly a week after its typical iPhone and Apple Watch debuts , setting the stage for new devices to arrive in October. But the event apparently won’t include the new iPhone — it will feature new Apple Watch and iPad models.
Like the company’s WWDC20 developers’ conference , this event will be virtual rather than in-person , livestreamed online for immediate viewing across the globe. The stream will start at 10 a.m. Pacific Time (1 p.m. Eastern) on Apple.com for viewing through browsers, as well as on the TV apps for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS devices.
The Apple Watch Series 6 is expected to be shown off at the event, including sensor and battery improvements, while a redesigned iPad Air is also likely to be featured. Rumors suggest Apple will also introduce a replacement for the Apple Watch Series 3 that is heavily based on the Apple Watch Series 5, but lacking ECG heart monitoring functionality. Wildcards such as a new Apple TV 4K+ and an Apple Silicon-powered Mac computer might also show up, along with a host of accessories ranging from AirTag object trackers to AirPods Studio headphones.
Some products could be held for a subsequent event in October, or not released at all this year. Apple was expected to use a September event to announce the iPhone 12 family , including two flagship-class iPhone 12 sizes and two premium-class iPhone 12 Pro models, variously differentiated with extra cameras , steel bodies, and faster 5G cellular technologies.
The new iPhones may see limited or staggered availability due to COVID-19-related production challenges, but they are expected to become widely available in time for the holidays.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The event will also likely confirm the release dates for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS 14, watchOS 7, and macOS Big Sur , operating systems that were formally introduced at WWDC in June. Last year, Apple offered firm release dates for everything except macOS Catalina, which ultimately lagged the others by several weeks.
Updated at 8:50 a.m. Pacific: This article has been updated to note that the event is now expected to focus on the Apple Watch and iPad rather than the iPhone. While the logo above appeared on Apple’s Special Events page with little description, the company subsequently announced “Time Flies” as its tagline for the event, hinting at the Watch (Time) and iPad Air (Flies) as marquee announcements.
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"5G built wrong? iPhone 12 battery tests raise questions for mini, Max | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/21/5g-built-wrong-iphone-12-battery-tests-raise-questions-for-mini-max"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages 5G built wrong? iPhone 12 battery tests raise questions for mini, Max Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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When I used to write comprehensive iPhone reviews, the most time-consuming tests were some of the most important: battery evaluations to see how long each device would last under real-world conditions. Apple typically made certain guarantees — different numbers for 3G and 4G talk time, internet access, and video playback — but as dedicated reviewers discovered , Apple’s official numbers weren’t always accurate. Sometimes, devices ran significantly longer than promised for some tasks, while shutting down prematurely in others.
I’ll share two behind-the-scenes secrets here: First, conducting these tests fairly and consistently is a truly awful process for reviewers; god bless those who devote days to these measurements, because those who don’t typically rely on those who do. Second, battery life is particularly important at the dawn of any new cellular generation. As of today, 5G connections can under some conditions rapidly drain phone batteries, potentially leaving commuters without sufficient power when they return home from work, and millions of other users — executives, employees, or students alike — with nearly dead batteries before nightfall unless they’re recharged mid day.
Early Android 5G phones anticipated this concern by including larger batteries than their predecessors. But the first 5G iPhones instead went in the opposite direction: The iPhone 12, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max actually have smaller batteries than last year’s models, and Apple added an iPhone 12 mini with the same 5G functionality but substantially less battery capacity. It’s no coincidence that Apple has clammed up on cellular battery life claims for iPhones. Having previously shifted to suspiciously soft “similar to last year’s model” battery metrics for prior iPhones, Apple then discontinued publishing cellular battery life measurements on its annually updated Battery Test Information page.
Verizon’s massive 5G marketing campaign has hung on the words “5G built right,” implying superior network performance thanks to faster millimeter wave 5G towers.
But the network also depends on 5G devices built right, or at least well enough not to leave users with worries of mid day battery problems. Apple’s choice to go with smaller iPhone batteries this year could be their unexpected Achilles’ heel — a critical performance dimension missed by early reviewers who don’t put in the testing time, even though battery life is really important to actual users. The iPhone 12 mini may be “the world’s smallest, thinnest, lightest, 5G phone,” but it could also have the shortest run time, a potentially huge problem for people expecting a full day of normal use.
I repeatedly used the word “could” because this is a hugely unusual situation in so many ways. People in some countries, notably including the U.S., have at least temporarily cut back on the commuting cycles that traditionally strained phone batteries five days a week. Moreover, 5G isn’t some monolithic evil here, killing every iPhone battery equally; very significant network differences will force some 5G phones to maintain two cellular connections at once and/or use extra power for 5G downloads , while others might actually see lower battery drain with 5G than 4G , at least in some places and situations.
Apple tried to make the issue moot by offering four different devices with three different battery sizes, leaving customers with the decision of how much they’re willing to compromise battery performance. Early battery tests performed by Tom’s Guide covered only the midrange iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, which notably contain the same battery and have the same 5G hardware. Each model ran for two hours less when using 5G than 4G, yet the two phones delivered different 5G and 4G numbers: The iPhone 12 Pro on T-Mobile’s network ran for over 40 minutes longer on 5G and an hour longer on 4G than the iPhone 12 on AT&T’s network. Whether that’s due to T-Mobile’s use of standalone 5G , which isn’t dependent on a simultaneous 4G connection, is an open and potentially complicated question, offering just one hint as to why Apple didn’t make any 5G battery guarantees to its international customer base.
Even so, you can get a general sense of the models’ battery characteristics from regulatory documents, which have revealed that the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro have 2,815mAh batteries, roughly 7.5% to 10% lower in energy capacity compared with the 3,110mAh iPhone 11 and 3,046mAh iPhone 11 Pro. Upon release next month, the iPhone 12 mini will have a 2,227mAh battery — a stunning 28% smaller than the iPhone 11’s, and 21% smaller than the iPhone 12’s — while the iPhone 12 Pro Max will have a 3,687mAh cell, down about 7% from the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s 3,969mAh capacity.
When pressed by reporters, Apple generally says that year-to-year battery capacity drops don’t matter for any given iPhone sequel, since there may be efficiency gains elsewhere, such as a new CPU, a better screen, or updated software. But the Tom’s Guide tests suggested a 53-minute 4G shortfall from the iPhone 11 to iPhone 12, versus a one-hour 4G improvement from the iPhone 11 Pro to the iPhone 12 Pro. Network differences could account for these disparities, but so could other factors — a bunch of other factors that would no doubt confound independent testers.
Due to reported manufacturing challenges, we’re around three weeks away from the first iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max tests, which will reveal just how much less 5G time the mini delivers, and how much of an advantage the Max offers over the smaller Pro. As I noted above, battery life is of particular concern at the dawn of any new cellular generation, and the apologist’s typical suggestion — “just turn 4G off” last decade, “just turn 5G off” this decade — defeats the point of buying new hardware. People have every right to expect that their brand new iPhones will be fully usable and perform as marketed when purchased, and thanks to carrier promises of rapid 5G buildouts, should expect even better performance over time.
If I was purchasing an iPhone now to use for the next three years, as is currently typical for smartphone investments, I would absolutely want to know the 4G and 5G battery performance before making a long-term commitment. Additionally, years of experience have also demonstrated that day one battery life will likely drop to 80% within two years of regular use, possibly leading to performance degradation.
In other words, an iPhone that starts with 8 hours of talk time will deliver closer to 6 hours of power in the middle of its lifespan, and even if the performance isn’t throttled, users may consider pricey battery or full device replacements even if their phones are otherwise entirely usable.
In part because of its bigger (but not biggest ever) battery, the gigantic iPhone 12 Pro Max may well wind up being a smarter purchase this year than its Plus- and Max-sized predecessors were in years past, while the small battery in an iPhone 12 mini might make it substantially less wise than it is cute. But only proper testing will let users know for sure. To those of you who are running (and re-running) the 4G and 5G tests this year, I wish you godspeed, as our eyes shall surely be upon you in the weeks ahead.
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"PhiSat-1 satellite uses AI to remove clouds from Earth images | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/20/phisat-1-satellite-uses-ai-to-remove-clouds-from-earth-images"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages PhiSat-1 satellite uses AI to remove clouds from Earth images Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Intel, the European Space Agency (ESA), and startup Ubotica today announced details of what they claim is the first AI-powered satellite to orbit the Earth. The product of a three-year development cycle, the organizations say the CubeSat — PhiSat-1 — could solve a challenge the space industry has faced for years: Photos from satellites are often obscured by clouds.
Clouds comprise about 70% of images from satellites such as the Copernicus Programme’s Sentinel-2, making them a waste of bandwidth, storage, and researchers’ time. The desktop-sized PhiSat-1 aims to solve this by collecting a large number of images from space in the visible, near-infrared, and thermal-infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and then filtering out cloud-covered images using AI algorithms.
PhiSat-1 was initially proposed by Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and presented at the 2017 Copernicus Masters, where it was the overall winner. The ESA, in partnership with Arianespace, launched the satellite from a rocket on September 2 from French Guiana, along with 45 other similarly small satellites built for various research purposes. (The launch was a proof-of-concept flight to demonstrate and validate Arianespace’s Small Spacecraft Mission Service, a rideshare launch service for small CubeSats.) PhiSat-1 is now soaring at over 17,000 miles per hour in sun-synchronous orbit about 329 miles overhead.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! According to Intel, PhiSat-1 contains a new hyperspectral-thermal camera — HyperScout-2 — and onboard AI processing thanks to an Intel Movidius Myriad 2 system-on-chip.
In tandem with another CubeSat, it’s designed to monitor polar ice and soil moisture while also testing inter-satellite communication systems in order to create a future network of federated satellites.
Because the Myriad 2 wasn’t intended for orbit, the team behind the PhiSat-1 had to perform “radiation characterization,” which entailed putting the chip through a series of tests to figure out how to handle any resulting errors or wear-and-tear. (A single charged particle can knock thousands of electrons loose, causing electronic noise and signal spikes.) Fortunately, the first test — 36 straight hours of radiation-beam blasting at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in late in 2018 — and two follow-ups went well. The chip passed in off-the-shelf form, suggesting it was likely to survive in space without major modifications.
To train the PhiSat-1’s algorithms to distinguish between clouds and non-clouds, the team extracted synthetic data from existing missions. The system combs through large sets of images and filters out those containing clouds before beaming the rest to Earth. Software integration and testing were completed within four months, after which it took nearly a year before challenges arising from the rocket, pandemic, and summer winds could be overcome to launch PhiSat-1 into orbit.
Intel, the ESA, and Ubotica anticipate PhiSat-1 will lay the groundwork for sophisticated AI-powered satellites to come. They envision future CubeSats capable of spotting fires when flying over areas prone to wildfire and notifying responders in minutes rather than hours. Over oceans, which are typically ignored, these CubeSats might spot rogue ships or environmental accidents. And over ice, they could track thickness and melting ponds to help monitor climate change.
Progress on PhiSat-2 is already underway. ESA and Ubotica say it will carry another Myriad 2 into orbit — one running AI apps that can be validated and operated during flight using a simple user interface.
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"Activision Blizzard brings Overwatch League exclusively to YouTube | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/24/activision-blizzard-google-youtube-esports-deal"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Activision Blizzard brings Overwatch, Call of Duty esports exclusively to YouTube Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Overwatch League on YouTube.
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Activision Blizzard and Google are getting into a far-reaching partnership that covers multiple facets of the publisher’s gaming business. Google Cloud will act as the “preferred partner” for hosting Activision Blizzard games. YouTube, meanwhile, will act as the broadcast home for Activision Blizzard’s live esports. That includes Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone, and more.
Google plans to use its server infrastructure to improve the gaming experience for Activision Blizzard fans. While Google has datacenters across the globe, it’s also promising to use cutting-edge features like A.I. to improve performance in the future.
“We’ve worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience,” Google Cloud gaming boss Sunil Rayan said. “We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world.” This reflects Google making a concerted effort to improve its relations with game developers and publishers. Google has always had a presence in this space, but Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the names most often associated with game hosting. Activision has even had a previous relationship with AWS relating to many of its games including Call of Duty.
This may start to change that.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! “We’re excited to partner with Google to drive the next generation of gaming innovation for the industry,” Activision Blizzard chief information officer Jacques Erasmus said. “Google Cloud’s best-in-class infrastructure gives us the confidence to deliver great entertainment to our fans around the world.” Overwatch League and other Activision Blizzard esports find a new home Activision Blizzard has one of the most developed esports initiatives. And the Overwatch League is a great example of its competitive gaming efforts. That kicked off in 2018 with an exclusive Twitch deal. Amazon’s live-video service paid $90 million for the exclusive broadcast rights. But now that deal has expired, and Twitch did not come back for another round.
That gave YouTube the chance to step in and scoop up the Overwatch League instead.
“With more than 200 million gamers a day watching more than 50 billion hours of gaming content per year, YouTube provides gamers and their passionate fans with the most popular video gaming platform in the world,” YouTube gaming boss Ryan Wyatt said. “Both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are the quintessential examples of world class esports content. As a former Call of Duty esports commentator myself, I couldn’t be more excited for Activision Blizzard to choose YouTube as its exclusive home for the digital live streaming of both leagues. This partnership further demonstrates our dedication to having a world class live streaming product for gaming.” The content wars continue And it’s likely that Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are more valuable to YouTube than Twitch. YouTube wants more people to think of it as a livestreaming site in addition to its on-demand videos. And esports is important to building that understanding among a large audience. This is part of an ongoing battle for content that has led YouTube to sign certain content creators to exclusive deals.
“A lot of the focus in the livestreaming wars has been on the individual content creators being signed given that they make up the majority of the content in the space. However, esports events are often responsible for the biggest audiences with the two most watched channels on Twitch in 2019 being Riot Games and Overwatch League,” said StreamElements chief executive Doron Nir. “This makes YouTube Gaming’s announcement of 3 notable leagues a significant move in terms of building their content portfolio and showcasing their commitment to the market.” For Activison Blizzard, this ensures that its esports leagues continue to feel like premier organizations.
“This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world,” Activision Blizzard esports chief Pete Vlastelica said. “It’s our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube’s powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Call of Duty: Warzone -- Why Activision's battle royale has so much traction | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/03/call-of-duty-warzone-why-activisions-battle-royale-has-so-much-traction"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Call of Duty: Warzone — Why Activision’s battle royale has so much traction Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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If you have gamers in your household, chances are one is playing Call of Duty: Warzone.
The new battle royale mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer arrived on March 10 just in time for the lockdown in the United States and elsewhere. And it’s become my game of choice to take my mind off the pandemic.
In its first month, the free-to-play game was downloaded more than 50 million times , or the same number that Electronic Arts and Respawn saw with the debut of Apex Legends last year. In this case, social distancing and self-isolation contributed to Warzone’s success. It has come to the attention of a wider group, particularly with parents or other household members who discover their gamer is obsessed.
Like Fortnite, Warzone has penetrated into the mainstream.
Saturday Night Live aired a segment on Warzone, which you can see below. In the episode, a Twitch streamer plays Warzone and gets killed immediately every time he spawns. That can happen, as a lot of players are quite skilled. (I even got killed once while parachuting into the battlefield — by another parachutist). But the trouble with the Saturday Night Live skit was that the map was from Modern Warfare multiplayer. It wasn’t from Warzone itself. Anybody who has played Warzone or Modern Warfare multiplayer would know that, and so it’s another case of mainstream entertainment trying to grok gaming and failing.
Still, the nod to a hardcore game on a show for everybody signals that gaming is gaining traction around the world, and Warzone is one of the games at the forefront of that offensive. In this story, I hope to explain why this game is so fun and popular during the pandemic.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Obsession It’s a compelling game, but it’s not easy to win. One-hundred-fifty players compete in a fight to the finish. You can play solo, or join teams of three or four squadmates. But only one team comes out as the winner as a shrinking circle forces everyone together on the battleground.
I have been obsessed with Warzone, as it took me a long time to get my first win — just yesterday. I came in second place four times, and it was just killing me that I didn’t yet have a victory. I widened my circle of friends and found people who were good at Warzone, and that helped improve my chances of getting a win. But mostly, I just needed to play a lot in order to beat the laws of probability.
I have played 147 games in Warzone. As I said, I have won one match, and I have come in the top 10 teams 32 times. I have 243 kills in those games. I’ve downed another 202 players (if you down someone, a squadmate can resuscitate the player). I have a career rank of 153 in both multiplayer and Warzone, and I am currently ranked at level 96 in the current Battle Pass Season 3 for Warzone.
I have spent 48 hours and 28 minutes playing all those games. That’s not a lot of time as far as hardcore gamers go. One of my friends has 10 victories across more than 600 games. But then again, I’ve had a busy day job during the pandemic. I had to spend a lot of my recent time preparing for our GamesBeat Summit 2020 event , which took place last week.
I’ve been far more engaged with Warzone than with Call of Duty: Blackout , which debuted with Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII. That battle royale mode came out last year and it didn’t have the same kind of hooks that kept me in the game longer.
How hardcore do you have to be? Above: Mark Chandler helped us get our first win in Warzone.
I am playing on the PC. For a long while, the game kept crashing after I finished matches. But lately, it’s been quite stable. Every now and then, it suffers from lag, which is an indication of how it can bring the internet to its knees. I am more than happy to put up with this, given the fact that a lot of other thrilling entertainment isn’t available now.
I am sure that some people are wondering if I’m actually good at this game, given my history.
No, not really. I am quite mediocre. However, I enjoy it. It’s immensely fun, and that’s what matters to me. You may be intimidated by it at first, but if you tell your squadmates it’s your first game they will likely be very helpful (if they’re playing with microphones).
Every year, I play Call of Duty and usually level up to the top level in multiplayer. I had done that in last fall’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and I was delighted to learn that when you collect your cash in Warzone and then spend it to buy a loadout, you can get access to your Modern Warfare multiplayer loadout. That was a brilliant reward for people who spent a lot of time in multiplayer leveling up their weapons.
When I get hold of my loadout (either by purchasing it at a buy station inside the game or when it randomly drops from the sky), I can stand my ground. I use a leveled up light machinegun (LMG) and an assault rifle, and I play with an Xbox game controller. That puts me at a disadvantage to players who can target better with a mouse and keyboard. But I find it’s the only way I can move and shoot well at the same time. With a full loadout, your gun is much more stable and it has a leveled up sight, which helps with precision aiming.
The other thing that is great about Warzone’s design for noobs (new players) is the Gulag. If you get killed for the first time, you have a chance to come back. You have to go to a prison and have another 1-on-1 fight with another player. If your squadmate is also in the Gulag with you, they can watch from above and tell you verbally which way to go to head off the enemy.
If you win in the Gulag, you get to parachute back into the game. If you lose, you can still watch your teammates play. They can collect cash and buy you back into the game at a buy station.
The net outcome is that Warzone is both engaging and team-oriented. It gives you a reason to stay and root for your team, even after you die. You can spectate them while you’re waiting to be repurchased, and you can give them advice. It’s a little design change that makes players more social. While you have to be a hardcore player to get good at the gameplay, the social side of it is more inviting for the folks who want to just have a good time.
Communication is the key Above: Stembo, stvrgeon, and PierrePressure stack up on a door as we prepare to exit onto the dam.
But the best thing isn’t just playing with familiar weapons. It’s that the game is extremely social.
In the name of team survival, you are motivated to talk. You have to tell each other where you’re going, to come back if they are straying, where the enemies are, or that you’re reloading. You do this with non-verbal cues, like double-clicking on an enemy far away to point them out to your squadmates, or with audio chat on an open mic. You can easily mark a spot on the map where you want the team to go next. That’s an innovation introduced by Apex Legends.
I strongly believe that this communication system is what makes this game so popular. When I’m hanging out in the lobby or warming up, I get to have conversations with folks like Mark Chandler or Sean Hollister and see how they’re doing. In this pandemic, that’s a blessing. It’s fun to goof off with friends; I often try to grab a helicopter and chop up other players with the blades. (See the video below).
“The amount of ingenuity among our players never fails to amaze me,” said Taylor Kurosaki , a narrative designer for Infinity Ward, in an interview with me. “The way that they can take the toolset that you give them, the playground that you give them, and then use it in ways you never imagined is remarkable.” On Thursday, Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners hooked me up with his team, which included some extremely talented folks: Stembo, stvrgeon, and PierrePressure. They all tried to get me my win when they heard I hadn’t won yet. Most of the time, I felt it was an escort mission where these guys were taking down so many other players and I was the VIP they had to protect.
I was amazed at how good these players were at sniping. In fact, if you want to get good at Warzone, you really should get a lot more comfortable with sniping, perhaps by training in multiplayer matches. Other skills like being able to fly a helicopter or drive a car will also earn you points with your squad. But the whole point of a squad is that you should have diverse skills. My skill is being a heavy gunner.
The expert squad was also good at tactics, like anticipating how to get to high ground first, or to outflank an enemy who has one player pinned.
They also spoke to each other on phones via Discord, as the audio clarity is much better on that gamer social network than the in-game audio, which may slow down the game. They chattered a lot about where the enemies were, marking the foes quickly with a single click of a mouse or tap on a controller. It gave me better insight on how a team that communicates can do much better. Quite often, on other teams, one of our squad will start shooting at someone without telling us where the enemy is. That wastes precious time.
In one of the games, we almost won (we came in third). And it was ironically right at the same point near the dam where I would later win a match. But in the match with Stembo, stvrgeon, and PierrePressure, we got squeezed off the dam. Because of that circle squeeze, I was the last survivor. I was hanging back and took out two players, but the gas finally got me. If I had jumped over the dam wall, I would have had a chance to play on, but I would have also been taken out by another team sitting on an island in an ice lake.
When I actually won a match in a game with Mark Chandler and two strangers, it was in almost the exact same location, except the other teams were the ones getting squeezed by the gas circle and we were the ones on the island. The closing gas forced them to run at us over the unprotected ice lake, and they were easy to pick off. We won because, during our communication, we chose correctly where the final circle would be, and that made all the difference in having the final advantage.
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"Call of Duty: Warzone hits 60 million downloads in less than 2 months | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/05/call-of-duty-warzone-hits-60-million-downloads-in-52-days"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Call of Duty: Warzone hits 60 million downloads in less than 2 months Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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More than 60 million players have parachuted into Call of Duty: Warzone in the past 52 days since its launch, according to Activision Blizzard.
When Warzone launched on March 11 , the U.S. was just going into a pandemic lockdown. Video game players needed something to do, and in its first month, the free-to-play game got more than 50 million downloads , or the same number that Electronic Arts and Respawn saw with the debut of Apex Legends last year.
In this case, social distancing and self-isolation contributed to Warzone’s success, and now the number of downloads has grown even further.
I had my first victory in Warzone on Saturday, and that’s no small feat, as you have to be the only squad to survive in a battle with 150 players. In my opinion, Warzone is a lot more engaging than Call of Duty: Blackout , which debuted with Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII. That battle royale mode came out last year, and I didn’t think that game was as engaging.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! In its first-quarter earnings report today , Activision Blizzard said it saw strong demand for Call of Duty games and World of Warcraft. In the first quarter, Activision had 102 million monthly active users.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has sold through more copies and has more players than any prior Call of Duty title at this point after its release. Sell-through (sales of the game to consumers, as opposed to retailers) for Modern Warfare in Q1 was the highest for the franchise outside of a launch quarter, driven by rising demand amid shelter-at-home conditions, the company said.
And Modern Warfare in-game net bookings more than doubled year-over-year versus Call of Duty: Blacks Ops IIII from last year.
Call of Duty: Mobile continued to build on last October’s launch with new content, features, and events aimed at player engagement and retention. The game saw increased reach and engagement in March. And the Call of Duty League pivoted to all-digital matches. That game has topped 170 million downloads , per estimates from Sensor Tower back in December.
In a call, Activision Blizzard said that the next “premium Call of Duty” title remains on track for launch later this year.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time review -- Crash back | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/01/crash-bandicoot-4-its-about-time-review-crash-back"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Review Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time review — Crash back Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Crash the party.
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Not long ago, I had written off Crash Bandicoot.
After those amazing three original games on PlayStation by Naughty Dog , Activision Blizzard churned out bland sequels until the franchise seemed dead. Then 2017 brought a compilation of great remakes of those games with the N. Sane Trilogy.
Hope flickered. Still, I would have never thought that my favorite Crash Bandicoot game would come out in 2020.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time comes out on October 2 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (I played on a PlayStation 4 Pro). I understand if you’re too busy looking forward to those next-gen machines releasing in November to be excited for a 3D platformer on PS4 and Xbox One.
But if you ever loved Crash — whether through those PlayStation classics or by experiencing the fantastic remakes — then you should be interested in It’s About Time.
Back to basics Crash Bandicoot 4 comes from Toys for Bob. That’s the team behind the Spyro remakes.
Being faithful to the original is important for any remake, but Toys for Bob has applied that same spirit to this Crash sequel. Just like with the original games, It’s About Time is a simple 3D platformer. It uses the same formula from the Crash Bandicoot trilogy. You explore linear levels by navigating through a mix of 3D corridor-based sections and 2D areas.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Compared to the crazy acrobatics of Mario or the high speeds of Sonic, Crash can seem basic. But the beauty is in that simplicity. The best Crash Bandicoot games focus on precision platforming set in beautiful, cartoon-inspired levels.
Instead of trying to turn Crash Bandicoot into an open world experience or a brawler-based action game, Toys for Bob has instead used that original formula to craft an adventure that is familiar yet remarkable. Sometimes, we have this unfair demand that all sequels reinvent or innovate. Crash Bandicoot 4 shows that often, all we really need is a new take on an old idea.
Above: Making friends with masks.
Masks and marsupials Not that Crash Bandicoot 4 doesn’t have new tricks to make it feel like more than a retread. As you play through the adventure, you come across four magical masks. These serve as powerups that give you special abilities. One mask slows down time for short bit. Another reverses gravity, so you can flip yourself onto the roof. These gimmicks add some needed variety and excitement.
You’ll also occasionally play as new characters. For most levels, you can control either Crash or his sister, Coco. Each have the same abilities that you’ll recognize from the original games. Some levels have you playing as Tawna, who uses a grappling hook and can do wall-jumps. Then there’s Dingodile, who has a giant vacuum that can suck up crates (I was getting some Blinx vibes while playing it). You can even play as series villain Neo Cortex, who can turn enemies into platforms with a ray gun.
I remember Crash Bandicoot 3 tried to add variety to its stages with vehicle levels. You’d suddenly find yourself flying a plane or riding a motorcycle. Those are a bit much for me. I’m playing a 3D platfomer. I want to, you know, jump. Having these different characters with their new abilities does a much better job of adding variety while not diverging too far from the core experience.
Creativity unbound Crash 4 has the level design and precision to make it a great 3D platformer. The art elevates the experience. These stages are beautiful and brimming with creativity. I mean, sure, you have an ice level. But it’s also a stage inhabited by zombie anglers. A dinosaur-themed level may not seem all that special, but it’s extensive foliage and bright colors make it pop out like a scene from an animated movie.
And when it comes to the animation, the characters and enemies are expressive and fun to watch. Toys for Bob’s animation work on the Spyro remake floored me, and that same expertise makes Crash 4 endearing and full of life. Crash 4 even looks better than those beautiful remakes of the PlayStation trilogy, thanks to its brighter colors and more cartoon-inspired character designs.
The boss battles are another showcase of amazing creativity. As much as I love the original Crash games, they always had weak boss fights. Not so for Crash 4! These fights are full of surprises that test your platforming prowess.
Above: This level has some big Fury Road vibes.
Play it your way Crash games can be hard. It’s part of the fun. Crash 4 also offers a good challenge, but you can alleviate the difficulty. No, you just don’t select some sort of easy mode. Instead, you can play the game with a lives system or without one. Of course, the original Crash (and most old 3D platfomers) has lives. If you die when you have at least one, you restart at a checkpoint. Run out of lives, and you start a level back from the beginning.
Some players will no doubt still crave the stakes that come from the threat of a “game over.” But most people will be happier playing without lives. In that mode, if you die, you always go back to the last checkpoint.
It still has a way for rewarding you for good play. If you beat a level while only dying a few times, you get a gem. You also get gems for collecting wumpa fruit (Crash’s version of coins or rings). Before, getting 100 wumpa fruit would give you an extra life.
Getting gems unlocks new costumes for Crash and Coco. This is a fun incentive to not just finish a level but to perfect it. So if just beating the game is too easy for your tastes, you’ll have a more challenging time unlocking all of these gems and costumes. You can also find tapes in each stage that you can only grab if you reach them without dying. These unlock bonus, extra-difficult levels. Oh, and when you beat each stage, you also gain access to the N. Verted version of that level, with its own set of gems to unlock. N. Verted doesn’t just mirror the layout of the stage, it also adds a weird color effect that makes it harder to see where you’re going.
This is the way to handle difficulty. Make the base experience challenging but easy enough for most people to beat, but offer additional levels and tasks that can test a player’s skill.
Above: Crash’s levels are beautiful.
The best Crash yet The original Crash titles are classics. For years, it seemed like we’d never get a new game that’s as good as they are.
But now, I feel safe saying that Crash Bandicoot 4 is the new best game in the series. It captures that fun-yet-simple platforming from the original, but its creative levels, mask abilities, and clever bosses help it surpass the PlayStation trilogy.
The remakes reminded us that those old Crash games are great, but It’s About Time shows us that this character and franchise have a future.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time comes out on October 2 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The publisher gave us a PS4 digital code for the purposes of this review.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"UC Berkeley's Niloufar Salehi on restorative justice in social media | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/12/uc-berkeleys-niloufar-salehi-on-restorative-justice-in-social-media"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages UC Berkeley’s Niloufar Salehi on restorative justice in social media Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn UC Berkeley associate professor Niloufar Salehi Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Victims of stalking, harassment, hate, election interference, and other abuses have for years argued that we need to rethink the way social media functions. But a consensus has been growing in recent weeks among people tired of the way social media works today, with advocates for reform ranging from civil rights groups to antitrust regulators to Prince Harry.
The work of University of California, Berkeley associate professor Niloufar Salehi might very well play a role in such a process. Salehi was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to consider what it would be like to apply principles of restorative justice to conflicts that occur on social media platforms.
A human-computer interaction researcher, Salehi has studied the personas of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm and was recently awarded a Facebook Research grant to study how Muslim Americans create counter-narratives to combat anti-Muslim hate speech online. Earlier in her career, she gained recognition for her work on Dynamo, a platform made for Amazon Mechanical Turk employees to organize and communicate. Dynamo debuted in 2015 after a year of consultations with workers who use Mechanical Turk to complete a range of small tasks, like labeling data used to train machine learning models.
Salehi spoke with VentureBeat about the challenges of applying restorative justice principles to social media, how platforms and the people who use them can rethink the role of content moderators, and ways that social media platforms like Facebook can better deal with online harms.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
VentureBeat: So how did your research into restorative justice in social media start? Salehi: This work came out of a research project that I was doing with a group called #BuyTwitter , and the idea was “What if users bought Twitter and ran it as a collectively owned co-op?” And one of the big questions that came up was “How would you actually run it in a sort of democratic way?” Because there weren’t any models for doing that. So basically the group reached out to me as someone who does social system design and understands online social systems, and one of the first things we did was consider the problems that exist with the current model.
We had these workshops, and the thing that kept coming up was online harm, especially harassment of different kinds, all these things that people felt like weren’t being addressed in any kind of meaningful way. So we started from that point and tried to think about how else you could address online harm. That brought us to restorative justice, which is a framework coming out of the prison abolition movement and some indigenous ways of dealing with harming communities, which asks after harm has happened, “Who has been harmed? What are their needs? Whose obligation is it to meet those needs?” And sort of thinking about every member — the person who’s done the harm, the person who’s been harmed, and other members of the community.
The way it’s used right now in schools and neighborhoods is usually that it’s within a community [where] everyone knows each other. And after some instance of harm happens — say, someone steals from someone else — instead of going to the police, they might have a neighborhood conference. There’s usually a mediator. They talk about the harm that’s happened and they basically come up with a plan of action for how they’re going to address this. A lot of it is just to have that conversation so the person who’s done the harm starts to understand what harm they’ve caused and starts to strive to repair it.
So the big problem with trying that model online is that not everyone knows each other, so that makes it really hard to have these kinds of conversations. Basically, what we’re doing in this research is taking that model’s values and processes and thinking about what happens if you take that and apply it at a higher level to problems online.
As part of that, we’re doing participatory design workshops with restorative justice practitioners, as well as moderators of online spaces who know the ins and outs of what can go wrong online. Part of what we’re doing is giving moderators online harm scenarios — say, revenge porn — then having them think through how you might address that differently. One of the things that happens is that thinking about the problem of online harm as just a problem of content moderation is actually extremely limiting, and that’s one of the things that we’re trying to push back on.
So the end goal for this work is to explore the sort of options available to add elements and features on these [social media] platforms that incorporate elements of restorative justice.
VentureBeat: Will you be working directly with Facebook or Twitter or large social media companies? Salehi: There are people at those companies that I’ve talked to at conferences and things like that, and there’s certainly interest, but I’m not working directly with any of those [companies] right now, but maybe down the line.
VentureBeat: What role do platforms play in restorative justice? Salehi: I mentioned how in the restorative justice process you’re supposed to take each actor and ask “What are their needs and what are their obligations?” In this sense, we’re treating the platform as one of the actors and asking what are the obligations of the platform? Because the platform is both enabling the harm to happen and benefiting from it, so it has some obligations — although we don’t necessarily mean that the platform has to step in and be a mediator in a full-on restorative justice circle. I personally don’t think that that’s a good idea. I think that the platform should create the infrastructure needed so that community moderators or community members can do that, and that can mean training community moderators in how to approach harm. It can mean setting obligations.
For instance, with regards to sexual harm, there’s been some work around how to actually work this into the infrastructure. And some models that people have come up with say every organization or group needs to have two point people to whom instances of sexual harm are reported, and it has to have protocols. So one simple thing could be that, say, Facebook requires that every Facebook group that is above a certain size has those protocols. So then there’s something that you can do if sexual harm happens, and it’s also something that can be reviewed, and you can step in and change if things are running amok.
But yeah, it’s sort of thinking about: What are the platform’s obligations? What are people’s obligations? And also what are some institutions that we don’t have right now that we need? VentureBeat: Something that comes to mind when talking about or thinking restorative justice and social media are adjacent issues. Like at Facebook, civil rights leaders say algorithmic bias review should be made a companywide policy , the company has been criticized for lack of diversity among employees, and apparently the majority of extremist group members join because the Facebook recommendation algorithm suggested they do so.
That’s a very long way of asking, “Will your research make recommendations or guidance to social media companies?” Salehi: Yeah, I definitely think that is a type of harm. And to take this framework and apply it there would be to go to these civil rights groups who keep telling us that this is a problem and Facebook keeps ignoring [them] and [instead do] the opposite of ignoring them, which is to listen to them, ask what their needs are. Part of that is the platform’s and part of that is fixing the algorithms. And part of why I’m really pushing this work is that it really bothers me how bottled up we get into the problem of content moderation.
I’ve been reading these reports and things that these civil rights groups have been putting out after talking with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, and the problem is still framed [in such as limited way] as a problem of content moderation. Another one is the recommendation algorithm, and it bothers me because I feel like that is the language that the platform speaks in and wants us to speak in too, and it’s such a limiting language that it limits what we’re able to push the platform to do. [Where] I’m pushing back is trying to create these alternatives so that we can point at them and say “Why aren’t you doing this thing?” VentureBeat: “Will the final work have policy recommendations?” is another way to put that question.
Salehi: Yeah, I hope so. I don’t want to overpromise. We’re taking one framework, restorative justice, but there are multiple frameworks to look at. So we’re thinking about this in terms of obligations, and you have the platform’s obligations and the public obligations, and I think those public obligations are what gets translated to policy. So [as] I was saying, maybe we need some resources for this, maybe we need the digital equivalent of a library. Then you would say, “Well, who’s going to fund that? How can we get resources directed to that? What are needs that people have, especially marginalized people that could be resolved with more information or guidance, and then can we get some public funding for that?” I think a lot about libraries, an institution built to fulfill a public need to access information. So we created these buildings basically that host that information in books, and we have this whole career and profession made for librarians. And I think that there’s a big gap here in — if I am harmed online, who do I go to and what do I do? I do think that’s also a public need for information and support. So I’m thinking about what would the online version of a library for online harm look like? What kind of support can they offer people, as well as communities to deal with their own harms? VentureBeat: So the library would be involved with getting redress when something happens? Salehi: It could just be providing information to people who have been harmed online or helping them figure out what their options are. I mean, a lot of in-person libraries have a corner where they put the information that’s about something that’s stigmatized, like sexual assault, that people can go and read and understand.
What I’m trying to basically do is take a step back and understand what are the needs and what are the obligations, and what are the obligations of a platform, and what are the obligations of we as a public of people who have harm among ourselves. So what are the public options? And then you can think about what are individual people’s obligations? So it’s trying to take a holistic view of harm.
VentureBeat: Will this work incorporate any of the previous work you did with Dynamo? Salehi: Yeah. Part of what we were trying to do with Dynamo was create a space where people could talk about issues that they shared. I did a whole year of digital ethnography with these communities, and when I started doing that work, some of what I found was that it was so hard for them to find things that they could agree on and act on together, and they actually had past animosity with each other very similar to a lot of the online harms that I’m finding now again.
When harm happens on the internet, we basically have zero ways to deal with it, and so we quickly ended up in these flame wars and people attacking each other, and so that that had resulted in these multiple fractured communities that basically hated each other and wouldn’t talk to each other.
So what we’re trying to achieve with the restorative justice work is when harm happens, what can we do to deal with it? So for instance, one of my Ph.D. students in this work is working with a lot of gaming communities, people who do multiplayer games, and a lot of them are quite young. Well, a lot of them are actually under 18 and we can’t even interview them. But harm happens a lot, and they do a lot of slurring and being misogynistic and racist. And there’s basically no mechanism to stop it, and they learn it, and it’s normalized, and it’s sort of what you’re supposed to do until you … go too far and you get reported, which happened in one of the harm cases that we’re looking at.
Someone recorded a video of this kid using all sorts of slurs and being super racist and misogynistic and put it on Twitter and people went after this person, and he was under 18, quite young, and he basically lost a lot of friends and he got kicked out of his gaming communities. And we’re sort of trying to figure out “Why did this happen?” Like, this doesn’t help anyone. And also these kids are learning all of these harmful behaviors and there’s no correction for it. They’re not learning what’s wrong here until they either never learn or they learn in a way that harms them and just removes them from their communities. So a lot like the prison industrial complex — but of course not at the scale or the harmfulness of that, but a microcosm of that same dynamic. So we’re trying to think about what other approaches could work here. Who needs training to do this? What tools could be helpful? VentureBeat: I know the focus is on restorative justice, but what are some different forms of AI systems that might be considered as part of that process? Salehi: I’m a little bit resistant to that question, partly because I feel like a lot of what has gotten us to this point where … everyone’s approach to harm is so horrible is that we’ve just pushed toward these minimal cost options. And you had Mark Zuckerberg going to Congress [in 2018] — he was asked questions about misinformation, about election tampering, about all sorts of harm that’s happened on his platform, and he said “AI” like 30 times. It sort of became this catch-all, like “Just leave me alone, and at some undisclosed time in the future AI will solve these problems.” One thing that also happens because of the funding infrastructure and amount of hope we’ve put into AI is that we take AI and go looking for problems for it to solve, and that’s one of the things that I’m resistant toward. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be helpful. I’m trained as a computer scientist, and I actually think that it could be, but I’m trying to push back that question for now and say “Let’s not worry about the scale. Let’s not worry about the technology. Let’s first figure out what the problem is and what we’re trying to do here.” Maybe sometime in the future we find that one of the obligations of the platform is to detect whenever images are used and then not just detect it and remove it but detect it and do something that helps meet people’s needs, and here we might say AI will be helpful.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"AI Weekly: Constructive ways to take power back from Big Tech | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/23/ai-weekly-constructive-ways-to-take-power-back-from-big-tech"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI Weekly: Constructive ways to take power back from Big Tech Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Facebook launched an independent oversight board and recommitted to privacy reforms this week, but after years of promises made and broken, nobody seems convinced that real change is afoot. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to decide shortly whether to sue Facebook , sources told the New York Times, following a $5 billion fine levied last year.
In other investigations, the Department of Justice filed suit against Google this week, accusing the Alphabet company of maintaining multiple monopolies through exclusive agreements, collection of personal data, and artificial intelligence. News also broke this week that Google’s AI will play a role in creating a virtual border wall.
What you see in each instance is a powerful company insisting it can regulate itself while government regulators appear to reach the opposite conclusion.
If Big Tech’s machinations weren’t enough, this week also brought news of a Telegram bot that undresses women and girls ; AI used to alter the emotions on people’s faces in photos ; and Clearview AI, which is being investigated in multiple countries , allegedly planning to introduce features to help police use its facial recognition services more responsibly. Oh, right, and there’s a presidential election campaign happening.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! It’s enough to make people reach the conclusion that they’re helpless. But that’s an illusion, one that Prince Harry, Duchess Meghan Markle, Algorithms of Oppression author Dr. Safiya Noble, and Center for Humane Technology director Tristan Harris attempted to dissect earlier this week in a talk hosted by Time.
Noble began by acknowledging that AI systems in social media can pick up, amplify, and deepen existing systems of inequality, like racism and sexism.
“Those things don’t necessarily start in Silicon Valley. But I think there’s really little regard for that when companies are looking at maximizing the bottom line through engagement at all costs — it actually has a disproportionate harm and cost to vulnerable people. These are things we’ve been studying for more than 20 years, and I think they’re really important to bring out this kind of profit imperative that really thrives off of harm,” Noble said.
As Markle pointed out during the conversation, the majority of extremists in Facebook groups got there because Facebook’s recommendation algorithm suggested they join the groups.
To turn the tide, Noble said it’s important to pay attention to public policy and regulation, as both are crucial to conversations about how businesses operate.
“I think one of the most important things people can do is to vote for policies and people that are aware of what’s happening and who are able to truly intervene. Because we’re born into the systems that we’re born into,” she said. “If you ask my parents what it was like being born before the Civil Rights Act was passed, they had a qualitatively different life experience than I have. So I think part of what we have to do is understand the way that policy truly shapes the environment.” When it comes to misinformation, Noble said people would be wise to advocate for sufficient funding for “counterweights” like schools, libraries, universities, and public media, which she said have been negatively impacted by Big Tech companies.
“When you have a sector like the tech sector that is so extractive — it doesn’t pay taxes, it offshores its profits, it defunds the democratic educational counterweights — those are the places where we really need to intervene. That’s where we make systemic long-term change, to reintroduce funding and resources back into those spaces,” she said.
Forms of accountability make up one of five values embedded in many AI ethics principles. During the talk, Harris emphasized the need for systemic accountability and transparency so the public can better understand the scope of problems created by Big Tech and seek redress. For example, Facebook could form a board people can report harms to and then produce quarterly reports on progress toward removing those harms.
For Google, one way to increase transparency would be to release more information about its employees’ AI ethics principle review requests. A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that Google does not currently share this information publicly, beyond a few isolated examples. Getting that data on a quarterly basis might reveal more about the politics of Googlers than anything else, but I’d sure like to know if Google employees have reservations about the company increasing surveillance along the U.S.-Mexico border or which controversial projects attract the most objections at one of the most powerful AI companies on Earth.
Since Harris and others released The Social Dilemma on Netflix, a number of people have criticized the documentary for failing to include enough voices of women, particularly Black women like Noble who have spent years assessing the issues it examines, such as how algorithms can automate harm. That said, it was a pleasure to see Harris and Noble speak together about how Big Tech can build more equitable algorithms and a more inclusive digital world.
For a breakdown of everything The Social Dilemma misses, you can read this recap of an interview with Meredith Whittaker that took place at a virtual conference this week. But she also contributes to the heartening conversation about solutions. One helpful piece of advice from Whittaker: Dismiss the idea that the algorithms are superhuman or superior technology. Technology isn’t infallible, and Big Tech isn’t magical. Rather, the grip large tech companies have on people’s lives is a reflection of the material power of large corporations.
“I think that ignores the fact that a lot of this isn’t actually the product of innovation. It’s the product of a significant concentration of power and resources. It’s not progress. It’s the fact that we all are now, more or less, conscripted to carry phones as part of interacting in our daily work lives, our social lives, and being part of the world around us,” Whittaker said. “I think this ultimately perpetuates a myth that these companies themselves tell, that this technology is superhuman, that it’s capable of things like hacking into our lizard brains and completely taking over our subjectivities. I think it also paints a picture that this technology is somehow impossible to resist, that we can’t push back against it, that we can’t organize against it.” Whittaker, a former Google employee who helped organize a walkout at Google offices around the world in 2018, also finds workers organizing within companies to be an effective solution. She encouraged employees to recognize methods that have proven effective in recent years, like whistleblowing to inform the public and regulators of serious harms. Volunteerism and voting, she said, may not be enough.
“We now have tools in our toolbox across tech, like the walkout, a number of Facebook workers who have whistleblown and written their stories as they leave, that are becoming common sense,” she said.
In addition to recognizing how power shapes perceptions of AI, Whittaker encourages people to try to better understand how AI influences our lives today. It might have been easy to miss amid so many other things this week, but the group AIandYou.org , which wants to help people understand how AI impacts their daily lives, dropped its first introductory video with Spelman College computer science professor Dr. Brandeis Marshall and actress Eva Longoria.
The COVID-19 pandemic, a historic economic recession, calls for racial justice, and the consequences of climate change have made this year challenging, but one positive outcome is that these events have led a lot of people to question their priorities and consider how they can make a difference.
The idea that tech companies can regulate themselves appears to have largely dissolved. Institutions are now taking steps to reduce Big Tech’s power, but even with Congress, the FTC, and the Department of Justice — the three main levers of antitrust — trying to rein in the power of Big Tech, I don’t know a lot of people who are confident they will be able to do so. Tech policy advocates and experts, for example, openly question whether Congress can muster the political will to bring lasting, effective change.
But whatever happens in the November 3 election or with antitrust enforcement, there are steps we can take to wrangle power away from Big Tech. People at the heart of the matter believe building a better world for ourselves and future generations will require, among other things, imagination , engagement with tech policy, and a better understanding of how algorithms impact our lives.
As Whittaker, Noble, and the leader of the antitrust investigation in Congress have said, the power Big Tech holds can seem insurmountable, but if people get engaged, there are real reasons to hope for change.
For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers and AI editor Seth Colaner — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI Channel.
Thanks for reading, Khari Johnson Senior AI Staff Writer VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Researchers find evidence of racial, gender, and socioeconomic bias in chest X-ray classifiers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/21/researchers-find-evidence-of-racial-gender-and-socioeconomic-bias-in-chest-x-ray-classifiers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researchers find evidence of racial, gender, and socioeconomic bias in chest X-ray classifiers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Google and startups like Qure.ai , Aidoc , and DarwinAI are developing AI and machine learning systems that classify chest X-rays to help identify conditions like fractures and collapsed lungs. Several hospitals, including Mount Sinai, have piloted computer vision algorithms that analyze scans from patients with the novel coronavirus. But research from the University of Toronto, the Vector Institute, and MIT reveals that chest X-ray datasets used to train diagnostic models exhibit imbalance, biasing them against certain gender, socioeconomic, and racial groups.
Partly due to a reticence to release code, datasets, and techniques, much of the data used today to train AI algorithms for diagnosing diseases may perpetuate inequalities. A team of U.K. scientists found that almost all eye disease datasets come from patients in North America, Europe, and China, meaning eye disease-diagnosing algorithms are less certain to work well for racial groups from underrepresented countries. In another study, Stanford University researchers claimed that most of the U.S. data for studies involving medical uses of AI come from California, New York, and Massachusetts. A study of a UnitedHealth Group algorithm determined that it could underestimate by half the number of Black patients in need of greater care. And a growing body of work suggests that skin cancer-detecting algorithms tend to be less precise when used on Black patients, in part because AI models are trained mostly on images of light-skinned patients.
The coauthors of this newest paper sought to determine whether state-of-the-art AI classifiers trained on public medical imaging datasets were fair across different patient subgroups. They specifically looked at MIMIC-CXR (which contains over 370,000 images), Stanford’s CheXpert (over 223,000 images), the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Chest-Xray (over 112,000 images), and an aggregate of all three, whose scans from over 129,000 patients combined are labeled with the sex and age range of each patient. MIMIC-CXR also has race and insurance type data; excluding 100,000 images, the dataset specifies whether patients are Asian, Black, Hispanic, white, Native American, or other and if they’re on Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! After feeding the classifiers the datasets to demonstrate they reached near-state-of-the-art classification performance, which ruled out the possibility that any disparities simply reflected poor overall performance, the researchers calculated and identified disparities across the labels, datasets, and attributes. They found that all four datasets contained “meaningful” patterns of bias and imbalance, with female patients suffering from the highest disparity despite the fact the proportion of women was only slightly less than men. White patients — the majority, with 67.6% of all the X-ray images — were the most-favored subgroup, where Hispanic patients were the least-favored. And bias existed against patients with Medicaid insurance, the minority population with only 8.98% of X-ray images. The classifiers often provided Medicaid patients with incorrect diagnoses.
The researchers note that their study has limitations arising from the nature of the labels in the datasets. Each label was extracted from radiology reports using natural language processing techniques, meaning a portion of them could have been erroneous. The coauthors also concede that the quality of the imaging devices themselves, the region of the data collection, and the patient demographics at each collection site might have confounded the results.
However, they assert that even the implication of bias is enough to warrant a closer look at the datasets and any models trained on them. “Subgroups with chronic underdiagnosis are those who experience more negative social determinants of health, specifically, women, minorities, and those of low socioeconomic status. Such patients may use healthcare services less than others,” the researchers wrote. “There are a number of reasons why datasets may induce disparities in algorithms, from imbalanced datasets to differences in statistical noise in each group to differences in access to healthcare for patients of different groups … Although ‘de-biasing’ techniques may reduce disparities, we should not ignore the important biases inherent in existent large public datasets.” Beyond basic dataset challenges, classifiers lacking sufficient peer review can encounter unforeseen roadblocks when deployed in the real world. Scientists at Harvard found that algorithms trained to recognize and classify CT scans could become biased to scan formats from certain CT machine manufacturers. Meanwhile, a Google-published whitepaper revealed challenges in implementing an eye disease-predicting system in Thailand hospitals, including issues with scan accuracy. And studies conducted by companies like Babylon Health , a well-funded telemedicine startup that claims to be able to triage a range of diseases from text messages, have been repeatedly called into question.
The researchers of this study recommend that practitioners apply “rigorous” fairness analyses before deployment as one solution to bias. They also suggest that clear disclaimers about the dataset collection process and the potential resulting algorithmic bias could improve assessments for clinical use.
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"No, AI is not for social good | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/23/no-ai-is-not-for-social-good"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest No, AI is not for social good Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Faced with the public furor over problems with artificial intelligence , tech companies and researchers would now have us believe that the big fix for those problems is to develop AI for social good.
This proposal is not new; it’s the latest in a long line of bold, mostly overreaching claims about technology’s capability to do social good. In his 2012 book The Master Switch , Tim Wu makes the case that, in the beginning, television was supposed to change the world by making information freely available. In the ’90s, tele-centers were supposed to transform education in developing countries. During the Arab Spring, we heard that social media was the loudspeaker of democracy. Put succinctly, these positions argue that the presence alone of certain technologies can effect social change — that, for example, with smartphones poverty will disappear.
Likewise, the promise of “AI for the good” ignores the fact that problems like poverty, recidivism, and the distribution of resources are political ones; they’re often the results of institutional failure. Technologies, when not aimed at the root of problems, divert our attention. On top of that, do we really want to leave big tech to “solve” these social problems when it has shown it’s capable of creating substantial social problems of its own — I’m thinking here of Facebook with its Cambridge Analytica deal, for example.
On one hand, it seems obvious that AI will make things better. It is like electricity, right? It is bringing new types of jobs, it is creating automation that will bring us all more leisure time, and it will solve historically under-funded problems because it can do what many people would do, but for cheap.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The reality is more complicated. In order to create some statistical models, which form the core of AI systems, you must use more energy than what the average American household consumes in one year. Behind the scenes of AI systems, like those that let driverless cars “see,” are thousands of low-paid laborers labeling millions of images. These folks complete tasks like “outline the truck in this picture” for hours on end. And far from a perfect tool, AI has managed to quietly assume the same kinds of biases humans are prone to.
These realities of AI seem at odds with it being a tool for social good.
So, when working for “the good,” we must ask a few questions: Which good and for whom ? Is it only AI that can do this good? Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and many others have begun to market their efforts along the lines of “AI for social good.” None offers a concrete justification of what makes these projects good. Instead, by implication, they mean to say that simply working on energy, health, or criminal justice, for example, is enough.
We might disagree with this definition of good. For example, one center at the University of Southern California (USC) works to “demonstrate how AI can be used to tackle the most difficult societal problems.” Yet some of its projects attempt to apply machine learning to better allocate L.A. anti-terrorism resources, and one aims to identify whether certain crimes in L.A. are gang related. As Ben Green describes, this latter effort ignores the racialized history and practice of policing in Los Angeles and raises serious concerns regarding the perpetuation of the 1990s myths of “superpredators.” When considering such projects for what they are, we begin to see less-glamorous issues appear — issues about bias, representation, and accountability. In their projects, the USC researchers act in a way that upholds, as opposed to questions, the status quo on crime and terrorism. Indeed, their decision to work on gang-prediction and anti-terrorism projects is political, a fact lost when the projects are obfuscated with terms like “social good.” These vague definitions of good, combined with sloppy ideas about AI, make us uncritical of what is happening with both technology, and, more importantly, the use of money.
That is not to say that we should not develop AI technologies. This past year, I worked at the Mumbai-based Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence to apply AI technologies in support of some of the communities most in need. In May, we won a Google AI Impact Challenge award for work to help smallholder farmers identify crop-destroying pests. I am confident in the good of this work. Similarly, my peers use AI to better estimate the distribution of poverty, to model the spread of infectious diseases, and to identify hate speech in online communities. There is clearly a role for AI technologies to do things that I would argue are good.
Whether teaching computing ethics at the University of Washington or explaining tech to a room of philosophers, I keep running into these political questions. Of course, what’s good to me is not good to everyone.
That said, the solution is not to avoid the inherently political discussion of how to define “good” but to embrace these discussions and to have a say in how technology and large corporations impact our lives.
Without addressing the political implications of AI technologies, calling them “good” will only generate hype and feelings of job-well-done. That is not good enough. We must challenge each technology’s creator to be clear about how they define social good. There is a role for AI technologies in creating a better world, one in which we realize commitments to doing good. Let us be honest about it.
Jared Moore is an ethics advisor and lecturer at the University of Washington (UW) School of Computer Science and technical program manager at Xnor.ai.
[Find out about submitting a guest post to VentureBeat.] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"MIT researchers say their AI model can identify asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/10/29/mit-researchers-say-their-ai-model-can-identify-asymptomatic-covid-19-carriers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages MIT researchers say their AI model can identify asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Researchers at MIT say they’ve developed an algorithm that can diagnose COVID-19 by the sound of someone’s cough, even if that person is asymptomatic. In a paper published in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology , the team reports that their approach distinguishes between infected and healthy individuals through “forced-cough” recordings contributed via smartphones, laptops, and other mobile devices.
Applying AI to discern the cause of a cough isn’t a new idea. Last year, a group of Australian researchers developed a smartphone app that could ostensibly identify respiratory disorders like pneumonia and bronchitis by “listening” to a person’s exhalations. The potential for bias exists in these systems — algorithms trained on imbalanced or unrepresentative datasets can lead to worse health outcomes for certain user groups — but studies suggest they could be a useful tool on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
The MIT researchers, who had been developing a model to detect signs of Alzheimer’s from coughs, trained their system on tens of thousands of samples of coughs as well as spoken words. Prior research suggests the quality of the sound “mmmm” can be an indication of how weak or strong a person’s vocal cords are, and so the team trained a model on an audiobook dataset with more than 1,000 hours of speech to pick out the word “them” from words like “the” and “then.” They then trained a second model to distinguish emotions in speech on a dataset of actors intonating emotional states such as neutral, calm, happy, and sad. And they trained a third model on a database of coughs in order to discern changes in lung and respiratory performance.
The coughs came from a website launched in April that allowed people to record a series of coughs and fill out a survey, which asked things like which symptoms they were experiencing, whether they had COVID-19, and whether they were diagnosed through an official test. It also asked contributors to note any relevant demographic information including their gender, geographical location, and native language.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers collected more than 70,000 recordings amounting to some 200,000 forced-cough audio samples. (Around 2,500 recordings were submitted by people who were confirmed to have COVID-19, including those who were asymptomatic.) A portion of these — 2,500 COVID-19-associated recordings, along with 2,500 recordings randomly selected from the collection to balance the dataset — were used to train the third model.
After combining the model trained on the audiobook snippets, the emotional state detector, and the cough classifier into one, the team tested the ensemble on 1,000 recordings from the cough dataset. They claim it managed to identify 98.5% of coughs from people confirmed with COVID-19 and accurately detect all of the asymptomatic coughs.
The MIT researchers stress that the model isn’t meant to diagnose symptomatic people. Rather, they hope to use it to develop a free prescreening app based on their AI model, and they say they’re partnering with several hospitals to collect larger, more diverse sets of cough recordings to train and strengthen the model’s accuracy.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Epic 'Monkey Selfie' case finally thrown out by SF judge | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2016/02/02/epic-monkey-selfie-case-finally-thrown-out-by-sf-judge"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Epic ‘Monkey Selfie’ case finally thrown out by SF judge Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The cause of photo-taking monkeys was dealt a huge setback by a San Francisco judge who squashed the case of the ‘monkey selfie.’ U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that the monkey’s rights cannot be infringed on in the case of the photo because a monkey cannot legally control the rights to a photo, according to The Recorder, a legal newspaper.
The dismissal last Friday comes a few weeks after the same San Francisco-based federal court ruled that a monkey couldn’t hold a copyright to a photo because, well, it’s a monkey. Orrick wrote that federal copyright statutes don’t mention animals, and that such questions were better addressed to Congress. (Please, no jokes about the relative intelligence of politicians and monkeys.) The photos in this case were arranged by British photographer David Slater.
During a trip to Indonesia in 2011, Slater set up a camera in the hopes of attracting a monkey to use it. A crested macaque grabbed it and took a number of selfies.
The photos were included in a book called “Wildlife Personalities.” That came to the attention of the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which filed a lawsuit against Slater on behalf of the monkey, which they claimed was a male named “Naruto,” against Slater.
PETA’s attorney has said the organization hasn’t decided whether it will file an appeal. But in the meantime, Slater still has a motion pending in the case, asking that PETA be required to reimburse his legal fees.
Clearly, he’s not happy about finding himself on the wrong end of the animal rights movement.
In a press release on his Facebook page yesterday, Slater blasted PETA for attacking him despite his reputation as a photographer who has spent his life devoted to wildlife conservation.
He also said that “Naruto” was pure fiction, and that the monkey in the photos is a female named “Ella.” “It’s a relief to get this Copyright Battle closed and that I won,” he wrote. “I’m now thankful I can stop wasting my time on PETA and get on with my job of promoting wildlife.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants your opinion on AI inventions | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/27/u-s-patent-and-trademark-office-wants-your-opinion-on-ai-inventions"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants your opinion on AI inventions Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Silicon Valley offices of the United States Patent and Trademark (USPTO) in San Jose, California Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is asking for the help of experts and the broader public to determine the impact AI will have on intellectual property and “whether new forms of intellectual property protection are needed.” A call for public comment was published in the Federal Registrar by the USPTO today in search of answers about such issues as how AI is reshaping perceptions of inventions or whether additional information should be required to claim a deep learning system as an invention since they can have a large number of hidden layers and weights that evolve.
To help solicit responses, the notice in the federal registrar comes along with a series of questions such as “what is an AI invention and what does it contain?” “What are the different ways that a natural person can contribute to conception of an AI invention and be eligible to be a named inventor? For example: Designing the algorithm or weighing adaptations? Structuring data in order to train a model? VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Should an entity or entities other than a natural person, or company to which a natural person assigns an invention, be able to own a patent on the AI invention?” another question reads.
Other concerns in the series of a dozen questions include whether new forms of intellectual property protections are needed for AI inventions and whether patent law should be revised to contributions to inventions from entities other than people.
“In addition to patents, in the coming months and beyond, the USPTO will examine the full spectrum of intellectual property policy issues that have arisen, or may arise, as AI technologies become more advanced,” deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the USPTO Laura Peter said in a blog post Monday.
The publication of the list of questions and call for comments follows a USPTO conference held in January to discuss AI’s impact on intellectual property like copyrights and trademarks.
Speakers represent consultancy Booz Allen, Google, Palantir Technologies, and Department of Defense’s Small Business innovation Research Program, among others.
Topics of discussion in January included how AI plays a role in counterfeit detection and intellectual property enforcement.
The USPTO will continue to receive comments on AI’s impact on intellectual property until October 11. Responses can be mailed to the office in Washington D.C. or emailed to [email protected].
In other patent and AI news, last month the startup Cognition IP raised $2.8 million for its service that augments patent attorneys with AI-enabled language understanding tools.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Bnh.ai is a new law firm focused only on AI | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/19/bnh-ai-is-a-new-law-firm-focusing-only-on-ai"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Bnh.ai is a new law firm focused only on AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Figure of Justice with scales.
Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
When VentureBeat asked Andrew Burt why he was starting an AI-focused law firm, Burt was quick to clarify that it’s about AI and analytics. But that didn’t answer the underlying question of why the world needs a law firm focused so precisely on this one key area.
“The thesis behind the law firm is that traditional legal expertise on its own is not sufficient,” said Burt, a Yale Law School alum. His partner is data scientist Patrick Hall, and together they aim to provide legal acumen around AI and analytics that’s bolstered by technical understanding. “If we are going to successfully manage the risks of AI and advanced analytics, we need both of these types of expertise commingled,” added Burt.
Called bnh.ai (techy shorthand for “Burt and Hall”), the firm is located in Washington, D.C., which Burt says confers a key advantage. “There’s a rule in D.C.
It’s called 5.4b , and it basically allows Washington, D.C. to be the only place in the country where lawyers and non-lawyers can jointly run law firms together,” he explained. That’s why Hall, who is not an attorney, can be a partner in this law firm.
Hall is an adjunct professor who teaches graduate courses in data mining and machine learning in the Department of Decision Sciences at George Washington University, and he’s also the senior director for data science products at H2O.ai. Burt’s other job is as chief legal officer at Immuta, which advises companies on legal and ethical uses of data and will incubate the new law firm.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Burt said that although Bnh.ai is emerging from a sort of stealth, it has been operational for weeks and already has some clients. That initial push hasn’t yet fixed the firm’s direction, but the team knows it will include AI regulation policy — perhaps an obvious focus given the D.C. location. For Burt, such policy work stands at an ideal intersection between technological knowledge and legal expertise. “Our plans are very ambitious, and we certainly hope to do that. Over the last few years, we have been informally advising regulators and policymakers on how to approach a lot of the issues raised by AI,” Burt said.
But what about legal challenges from people who feel they’ve been injured in some way by an AI system, like potential discrimination in a job hunt, accidents caused by autonomous vehicles, or violations of data privacy rights? Burt acknowledged that there’s much to mine in these areas, and he didn’t rule out the possibility that the firm would litigate cases. “The truth is we don’t know, because we’re just starting out, but so far the answer seems to be that customers are engaging us kind of prelitigation,” he said. “And the idea is to figure out what could go wrong, and then how do we minimize impact — or frankly, what is going wrong, and how do we stop it? So there’s an incident response component to this as well.” It all comes down to liability. Burt said that when companies — whether small or large (as in, Fortune 100) — put resources into AI projects, they start to see that AI is a huge liability because of its powerful capabilities. Burt broadly classifies AI liability into three categories: fairness concerns, privacy, and security. He sees the issue of interpretability as an umbrella over all three. “If you can’t interpret your AI, it’s very hard to understand what types of liabilities it’s causing.” AI presents novel problems that, naturally, have legal ramifications. For example, there’s debate about whether an AI can hold a patent or copyright a written work.
As the medical field adopts more machine learning and computer vision tools in patient diagnostics, questions about physician liability continue to percolate.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are wrestling with how to understand and regulate facial recognition.
Though readily acknowledging that AI demands a new generation of laws and regulations, Burt asserts that existing legal precedent can be adapted or applied to these new problems. “I have to disagree with the point that all of this is new,” he said. “One of my frustrations is that frequently [in] these conversations, people act as if we’re starting from square zero or square one. And that’s not true. There are lots of different frameworks we can point to.” A key example he flagged is SR 11-7 , a Federal Reserve regulation that has to do with risk from algorithmic models. It’s been on the books since 2011.
His adamant position on precedence is perhaps somewhat controversial.
But regardless of whether AI presents wholly novel legal challenges or not, no one would disagree that navigating them is difficult. This is what Burt and Hall are leaning into with their AI-focused law firm. “I can’t even tell you the number of situations I’ve been in where the biggest question, kind of standing in the way in the way of the adoption of artificial intelligence, was not technical — it was legal,” he said.
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16,156 | 2,018 |
"Google is giving machines voices that sound more human | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/27/google-is-giving-machines-voices-that-sound-more-human"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google is giving machines voices that sound more human Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Google researchers have found ways to make machine-generated speech sound more natural to humans, members of Google’s Brain and Machine Perception teams said today in a blog post that included samples of the more expressive voices. Earlier today, Google announced the beta release of its Cloud Text-to-Speech services to provide customers with the same speech synthesis used by Google Assistant. Google’s Cloud Text-to-Speech is powered by DeepMind’s WaveNet , which can also be used to generate natural-sounding voices.
Services like text-to-speech and research methods introduced today could be used to bring more natural speech to devices, apps, or digital services that utilize voice control or voice computing.
The new methods for making voices sound human are presented in two recently published articles about how to mimic things like stress or intonation in speech, sounds referred to in linguistics as prosody.
Both papers document techniques that build on top of Tacotron 2 , an AI system using neural networks trained to mimic human speech that made its debut last December.
Though Tacotron sounded like a human voice to the majority of people in an initial test with 800 subjects, it’s unable to imitate things like stress or a speaker’s natural intonation. In the first study coauthored by Tacotron co-creator Yuxuan Wang, transfer of things like stress level were achieved by embedding style from a recorded clip of human speech.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “This embedding captures characteristics of the audio that are independent of phonetic information and idiosyncratic speaker traits — these are attributes like stress, intonation, and timing,” researcher Yuxuan Wang and engineer RJ Skerry-Ryan said in a blog post. “At inference time, we can use this embedding to perform prosody transfer, generating speech in the voice of a completely different speaker but exhibiting the prosody of the reference.” The second paper, authored in part by Skerry-Ryan, uses unsupervised training to identify speech patterns and imitate certain speech styles.
While the first method for prosody transfer is dependent on imitating speech of similar length and sentence structure, methods used in the second paper achieve speech style transfers for things like an angry or lively tone without needing a sound recording whose tone is being imitated or needing to imitate speech of similar length.
“This is a promising result, as it paves the way for voice interaction designers to use their own voice to customize speech synthesis,” Wang and Skerry-Ryan said.
In addition to Google’s text-to-speech and speech recognition services, tech for a more expressive voice could also lead to a more human-sounding Google Assistant. The move toward voices with greater range appears to be part of the general strategy for tech giants with voice-based assistants.
Siri got a more expressive voice last year , and last April Alexa got SSML tags that let voice app developers add expression to the assistant’s voice — like a pause or whisper or expressions like “BOOM” or “Bada bing.” SSML has also been made available for the makers of Google Assistant actions.
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"Microsoft's FastSpeech AI speeds up realistic voices generation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/11/microsofts-fastspeech-ai-speeds-up-realistic-voices-generation"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Microsoft’s FastSpeech AI speeds up realistic voices generation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Microsoft logo Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
State-of-the-art text-to-speech models can produce snippets that sound nearly humanlike on first listen. In point of fact, they underpin the neural voices available through Google Assistant, as well as the newscaster voice that recently came to Alexa and Amazon’s Polly service. But because most of the models share the same synthesis approaches — this is, they generate a mel-spectrogram (a representation of a sound’s power) from text and then synthesize speech using a vocoder (a codec that analyzes and synthesizes voice signals) — they suffer the same shortcomings, namely slow inference for mel-spectrogram generation and skipped and repeated words in synthesized speech.
In an attempt to solve these and other text-to-speech-related challenges, researchers from Microsoft and Zhejiang University developed FastSpeech , a novel machine learning model that they detail in a paper (“ FastSpeech: Fast, Robust and Controllable Text to Speech “) accepted to the NeurIPS 2019 conference in Vancouver. It features a unique architecture that not only improves performance in a number of areas compared with other text-to-speech models (its mel-spectrogram generation is 270 times faster than the baseline and its voice generation is 38 times faster), but that eliminates errors like word skipping and affords fine-grained adjustment of speed and word break.
Importantly, FastSpeech contains a length regulator that reconciles the difference between mel-spectrograms sequences and sequences of phonemes (perceptually distinct units of sound). Since the length of phoneme sequences is always smaller than that of mel-spectrogram sequences, one phoneme corresponds to several mel-spectrograms. The length regulator, then, expands the sequence of phonemes according to the duration to match the length of a mel-spectrogram sequence. (A complementary duration predictor component determines the duration of each phoneme.) Increasing or decreasing the number of mel-spectrograms that align to a phoneme, or the phoneme duration, adjusts the voice speed proportionally.
Above: A graphic illustrating FastSpeech’s architecture.
To verify FastSpeech’s effectiveness, the researchers tested it against the open source LJ Speech data set, which contains 13,100 English audio clips (amounting to 24 hours of audio) and the corresponding text transcripts. After randomly splitting the corpus into 12,500 samples for training, 300 samples for validation, and 300 samples for testing, they conducted a series of evaluations on voice quality, robustness, and more.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The team reports that FastSpeech nearly matched the quality of Google’s Tacotron 2 text-to-speech model and handily outperformed a leading Transformer -based model in terms of robustness, managing an effective error rate of 0% compared with the baseline’s 34%. (Concededly, the robustness test only involved 50 sentences, albeit sentences selected for their semantic complexity.) Moreover, it was able to vary the speed of generated voices from 0.5 times to 1.5 times without a loss of accuracy.
Here are a few samples: Future work will involve combining FastSpeech and a speedier vocoder into a single model for a “purely end-to-end” text-to-speech solution.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,158 | 2,020 |
"Facebook's voice synthesis AI generates speech in 500 milliseconds | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/15/facebooks-voice-synthesis-ai-generates-speech-in-500-milliseconds"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook’s voice synthesis AI generates speech in 500 milliseconds Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Facebook today unveiled a highly efficient, AI text-to-speech (TTS) system that can be hosted in real time using regular processors. It’s currently powering Portal , the company’s brand of smart displays, and it’s available as a service for other apps, like VR, internally at Facebook.
In tandem with a new data collection approach, which leverages a language model for curation, Facebook says the system — which produces a second of audio in 500 milliseconds — enabled it to create a British-accented voice in six months as opposed to over a year for previous voices.
Most modern AI TTS systems require graphics cards, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) , or custom-designed AI chips like Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) to run, train, or both. For instance, a recently detailed Google AI system was trained across 32 TPUs in parallel. Synthesizing a single second of humanlike audio can require outputting as many as 24,000 samples — sometimes even more. And this can be expensive; Google’s latest-generation TPUs cost between $2.40 and $8 per hour in Google Cloud Platform.
TTS systems like Facebook’s promise to deliver high-quality voices without the need for specialized hardware. In fact, Facebook says its system attained a 160 times speedup compared with a baseline, making it fit for computationally constrained devices. Here’s how it sounds: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “The system … will play an important role in creating and scaling new voice applications that sound more human and expressive,” the company said in a statement. “We’re excited to provide higher-quality audio … so that we can more efficiently continue to bring voice interactions to everyone in our community.” Components Facebook’s system has four parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect of speech: a linguistic front-end, a prosody model, an acoustic model, and a neural vocoder.
The front-end converts text into a sequence of linguistic features, such as sentence type and phonemes (units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a language, like p , b , d , and t in the English words pad , pat , bad , and bat ). As for the prosody model, it draws on the linguistic features, style, speaker, and language embeddings — i.e., numerical representations that the model can interpret — to predict sentences’ speech-level rhythms and their frame-level fundamental frequencies. (“Frame” refers to a window of time, while “frequency” refers to melody.) Style embeddings let the system create new voices including “assistant,” “soft,” “fast,” “projected,” and “formal” using only a small amount of additional data on top of an existing training set. Only 30 to 60 minutes of data is required for each style, claims Facebook — an order of magnitude less than the “hours” of recordings a similar Amazon TTS system takes to produce new styles.
Facebook’s acoustic model leverages a conditional architecture to make predictions based on spectral inputs, or specific frequency-based features. This enables it to focus on information packed into neighboring frames and train a lighter and smaller vocoder, which consists of two components. The first is a submodel that upsamples (i.e., expands) the input feature encodings from frame rate (187 predictions per second) to sample rate (24,000 predictions per second). A second submodel similar to DeepMind’s WaveRNN speech synthesis algorithm generates audio a sample at a time at a rate of 24,000 samples per second.
Performance boost The vocoder’s autoregressive nature — that is, its requirement that samples be synthesized in sequential order — makes real-time voice synthesis a major challenge. Case in point: An early version of the TTS system took 80 seconds to generate just one second of audio.
The nature of the neural networks at the heart of the system allowed for optimization, fortunately. All models consist of neurons, which are layered, connected functions. Signals from input data travel from layer to layer and slowly “tune” the output by adjusting the strength (weights) of each connection. Neural networks don’t ingest raw pictures, videos, text, or audio, but rather embeddings in the form of multidimensional arrays like scalars (single numbers), vectors (ordered arrays of scalars), and matrices (scalars arranged into one or more columns and one or more rows). A fourth entity type that encapsulates scalars, vectors, and matrices — tensors — adds in descriptions of valid linear transformations (or relations).
With the help of a tool called PyTorch JIT, Facebook engineers migrated from a training-oriented setup in PyTorch, Facebook’s machine learning framework, to a heavily inference-optimized environment. Compiled operators and tensor-level optimizations, including operator fusion and custom operators with approximations for the activation function (mathematical equations that determine the output of a model), led to additional performance gains.
Another technique called unstructured model sparsification reduced the TTS system’s training inference complexity, achieving 96% unstructured sparsity without degrading audio quality (where 4% of the model’s variables, or parameters, are nonzero). Pairing this with optimized sparse matrix operators on the inference model led to a 5 times speed increase.
Blockwise sparsification, where nonzero parameters are restricted to blocks of 16-by-1 and stored in contiguous memory blocks, significantly reduced bandwidth utilization and cache usage. Various custom operators helped attain efficient matrix storage and compute, so that compute was proportional to the number of nonzero blocks in the matrix. And knowledge distillation, a compression technique where a small network (called the student) is taught by a larger trained neural network (called the teacher), was used to train the sparse model, with a denser model as the teacher.
Finally, Facebook engineers distributed heavy operators over multiple processor cores on the same socket, chiefly by enforcing nonzero blocks to be evenly distributed over the parameter matrix during training and segmenting and distributing matrix multiplication among several cores during inference.
Data collection Modern commercial speech synthesis systems like Facebook’s use data sets that often contain 40,000 sentences or more. To collect sufficient training data, the company’s engineers adopted an approach that relies on a corpus of open domain speech recordings — utterances — and selects lines from large, unstructured data sets. The data sets are filtered by a language model based on their readability criteria, maximizing the phonetic and prosodic diversity present in the corpus while ensuring the language remains natural and readable.
Facebook says this led to fewer annotations and edits for audio recorded by a professional voice actor, as well as improved overall TTS quality; by automatically identifying script lines from a more diverse corpus, the method let engineers scale to new languages rapidly without relying on hand-generated data sets.
Future work Facebook next plans to use the TTS system and data collection method to add more accents, dialogues, and languages beyond French, German, Italian, and Spanish to its portfolio. It’s also focusing on making the system even more light and efficient than it is currently so that it can run on smaller devices, and it’s exploring features to make Portal’s voice respond with different speaking styles based on context.
Last year, Facebook machine learning engineer Parthath Shah told The Telegraph the company was developing technology capable of detecting people’s emotions through voice, preliminarily by having employees and paid volunteers re-enact conversations. Facebook later disputed this report, but the seed of the idea appears to have germinated internally. In early 2019, company researchers published a paper on the topic of producing different contextual voice styles, as well as a paper that explores the idea of building expressive text-to-speech via a technique called join style analysis.
Here’s a sample: “For example, when you’re rushing out the door in the morning and need to know the time, your assistant would match your hurried pace,” Facebook proposed. “When you’re in a quiet place and you’re speaking softly, your AI assistant would reply to you in a quiet voice. And later, when it gets noisy in the kitchen, your assistant would switch to a projected voice so you can hear the call from your mom.” It’s a step in the direction toward what Amazon accomplished with Whisper Mode , an Alexa feature that responds to whispered speech by whispering back. Amazon’s assistant also recently gained the ability to detect frustration in a customer’s voice as a result of a mistake it made, and apologetically offer an alternative action (i.e., offer to play a different song) — the fruit of emotion recognition and voice synthesis research begun as far back as 2017.
Beyond Amazon, which offers a range of speaking styles (including a “newscaster” style) in Alexa and its Amazon Polly cloud TTS service, Microsoft recently rolled out new voices in several languages within Azure Cognitive Services. Among them are emotion styles like cheerfulness, empathy, and lyrical, which can be adjusted to express different emotions to fit a given context.
“All these advancements are part of our broader efforts in making systems capable of nuanced, natural speech that fits the content and the situation,” said Facebook. “When combined with our cutting-edge research in empathy and conversational AI, this work will play an important role in building truly intelligent, human-level AI assistants for everyone.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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16,159 | 2,020 |
"Google Cloud releases COVID-19 data sets to foster coronavirus-fighting AI models | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/30/google-launches-covid-19-public-datasets-program-to-foster-coronavirus-fighting-ai-models"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google Cloud releases COVID-19 data sets to foster coronavirus-fighting AI models Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In an effort to help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus, which is projected to infect millions of people in the U.S. alone, Google today launched the COVID-19 Public Datasets program, which will host a repository of public data sets that relate to the crisis and make them free to access and analyze. The idea is to remove barriers and to provide researchers access to critical information quickly and easily, eliminating the need to search for and onboard large data files.
The corpora within the COVID-19 Public Datasets program include the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE) data set, Global Health Data from the World Bank, and OpenStreetMap data, all of which are stored for free on Google Cloud. (Google says it’ll reach out to organizations whose data sets are pre-selected for inclusion in the program.) The data sets have a “COVID-19” label, a description, and several sample queries, and they’re searchable from the Google Cloud Console Marketplace and from the BigQuery UI with the tag “freebqcovid.” Researchers can use BigQuery ML, Google’s service that enables users to create and execute machine learning models in BigQuery (a fully managed data warehouse) using SQL queries, to train machine learning models on COVID-19 data sets. Queries are free, and they’ll remain free until September 15. But Google notes that if any of the data sets are joined with non-COVID-19 data sets, the bytes processed will be counted against the free tier — BigQuery Sandbox, which has monthly 10GB storage and 1TB query limits — then charged accordingly, in order to prevent abuse.
“The contents of these datasets are provided to the public strictly for educational and research purposes only, [but] we on the Google Cloud team sincerely hope that the COVID-19 Public Dataset Program will enable better and faster research to combat the spread of this disease,” wrote BigQuery product manager and GIS lead Chad W. Jennings and developer advocate Shane Glass in a blog post.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The debut of the COVID-19 Public Datasets program follows Google’s many other coronavirus mitigation efforts, which are ongoing. The company donated $800 million in ads and loans to organizations fighting the virus, added a coronavirus tips Google Assistant shortcut, and partnered with Microsoft and Palantir to build a dashboard for the U.K.’s National Health Service. Separately, Google launched a dedicated page and search portal to collate resources about COVID-19, and the tech giant’s parent company — Alphabet — ramped up a screening program within the Bay Area.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,160 | 2,016 |
"Google's 4K Chromecast Ultra isn't a huge step up from last year's model | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2016/11/13/googles-4k-chromecast-ultra-isnt-a-huge-step-up-from-last-years-model"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google’s 4K Chromecast Ultra isn’t a huge step up from last year’s model Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google's 4K Chromecast Ultra.
Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
About one week ago, Google started shipping its newest Chromecast device, the Chromecast Ultra, which is capable of streaming 4K and (high-dynamic range) HDR video on 4K displays. It costs $69, which comes out to $35 more than the Chromecast that Google released last year , and the original model that Google started selling in 2013.
I’ve had some time to experiment with the new gadget in the past few days, on a 4K TV and a 1080p TV, and I have some initial impressions. I’m sharing them with the hope that they’ll help you figure out if you want to buy the new model. (The Amazon Fire TV and some Roku boxes support 4K, but the Apple TV currently does not.) When you take it out of the box, you’ll notice that the Chromecast Ultra feels fancier than its predecessors. Gone is the Frisbee-like Chrome logo on the front of the dongle. Instead, you find Google’s increasingly pervasive “G” logo on glossy black plastic. In the box, you also find the “G” and the glossy plastic on the power adapter, which contains an Ethernet port. That will come in handy when the Wi-Fi connection in the room where you want to watch isn’t very strong. Until this point, you had to buy an Ethernet adapter separately. Plus, the distinctive look of the adapter will help you identify it quickly when you need to unplug it from a power strip.
One thing that makes this device less than necessary for many people is the dearth of 4K video that you can watch. That will change over time, as an increasing number of cameras — including the Google Pixel — let you shoot in 4K. And Google says that Google Play Movies & TV will introduce 4K content before the end of this year.
If you have a 4K TV, you probably already know there isn’t a ton of 4K material that you can watch right now. And you’d probably be willing to part with $69 if it means there will be more content that you can watch in 4K.
Still, the question I had when Google launched the Chromecast Ultra is whether it will be that much better than previous Chromecasts. At the event where the Chromecast Ultra was unveiled, Google’s Mario Queiroz said that the product provides “an even crisper picture” and loads content 1.8 times faster than older versions.
So I sat down in front of a 4K TV — a 49-inch Sony Bravia UltraHD Smart TV — and watched the same 4K videos on the new Chromecast and the Chromecast 2 from 2015 to see what I could see.
I was expecting more of a difference, frankly. Many videos looked only a little bit sharper and flowed just slightly more smoothly on the Chromecast Ultra. Video loaded faster on the new model for just one video that I watched.
For the discerning 4K users among us, this may be worth an upgrade from the Chromecast 2. If you’re less picky, you could stick with the Chromecast 2. If you have the original Chromecast, now would be a good time to upgrade — come on, you’ve got a 4K TV. If you don’t have any Chromecast, I think this would be a good purchase.
What if you don’t have a 4K TV? You may be wondering if you should upgrade from a previous model, or if this Chromecast is so good that it’s finally worth the plunge.
On my 50-inch Vizio Full Array LED Smart TV, the best Chromecast for the money, to me, is last year’s model. With this year’s version, you might notice a few more details in videos, and they might look a tiny bit smoother, but that’s all. In my testing, videos loaded at about the same speed on all three generations of Chromecasts.
Given that, I’d say if you have a first-generation Chromecast, you could upgrade to last year’s model without worrying that you’ll miss out on a lot with the 4K version. If you have a second-generation Chromecast, try to resist the FOMO and stick with what you’ve got. If you don’t have a Chromecast, well, I’d say you should go for last year’s model.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,161 | 2,016 |
"Google has sold 55 million Chromecasts, up from 30 million in July 2016 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2017/10/04/google-has-sold-55-million-chromecasts-up-from-30-million-in-july-2016"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google has sold 55 million Chromecasts, up from 30 million in July 2016 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Chromecasts compared Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
At its Made by Google hardware event today , Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh announced that the company has sold 55 million Chromecasts , the company’s cheap streaming dongles that let you send music, photos, and videos from your phone to a TV or an external speaker. Google had previously shared it had sold 25 million devices in May 2016 and 30 million in July 2016.
But it’s been more than a year now, so we were due for an update. 55 million is a big milestone, and nothing to scoff at given that the first-generation Chromecast was only released in July 2013. The Chromecast 2 and Chromecast Audio followed in September 2015, and then we got the Chromecast Ultra in November 2016.
The 55 million unit milestone is a difficult number to compare as the Chromecast doesn’t really have a direct competitor. Similar offerings from Apple and Roku are pricier, while Amazon doesn’t report sales numbers for any of its products.
Osterloh today also shared that Google Wifi is the top-selling mesh router and that Google Assistant has gained 100 million new answers in the past year.
As for the Pixel, Osterloh said it also had a good year, and then made a joke about it. “I just wish we had more of them to go around,” he said. In other words, Google isn’t going to share sales numbers for its Pixels, because they’re not very good, just like the Nexus line.
Osterloh set the stage for this year’s Google hardware event by sharing some progress since the first Made by Google event.
It’s telling that the only real number shared was for a product that didn’t even debut last year, but maybe that was expected.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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16,162 | 2,018 |
"Google announces new Chromecast with 1080p streaming at 60fps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/09/google-announces-new-chromecast-thats-15-percent-faster"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google announces new Chromecast with 1080p streaming at 60fps Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google's third-generation Chromecast.
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In the years since the first Chromecast hit store shelves in 2013, Google’s $35 plug-in streaming dongle has come to dominate the set-top landscape. The more than 55 million units sold globally have handled in excess of 1.5 billion stream requests from tens of thousands of apps, according to Google. And the Mountain View company, intent on keeping a good thing going, introduced a third-generation model in a blog post.
The new Chromecast replaces the SKU launched in September 2015, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from looking at it. It retains the puck-like, circular design of its predecessor, with a flexible HDMI cable hanging off the top of the enclosure. Also left untouched is the microUSB port that supplies power; folks hoping for a USB Type-C upgrade won’t find it here.
That’s not to suggest there aren’t changes, though, and universally for the better. The third-gen Chromecast has a matte finish that’s easier to grip and an upgraded Wi-Fi antenna design with faster 5GHz performance. In FCC filings earlier this year, Google said it has a maximum antenna gain of 4dBi compared to the outgoing Chromecast’s 2.1dBi, a roughly 50 percent improvement.
It’s also 15 percent faster thanks to unspecified hardware improvements, and can support video up to 1080p at 60 frames per second.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Another spotlight feature is Bluetooth connectivity, which theoretically lays the groundwork for remote control and game controller support. Details were hard to come by at publication time — when asked for clarification, a Google product manager told VentureBeat Chromecast has “ always had Bluetooth ” — but we’ll update this post as we learn more.
The new Chromecast is available in stores starting today starting at $35, and comes in two colors: Chalk and Charcoal. It’s shipping in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. to start, with even more countries to follow in 2019.
Sadly absent from today’s announcements was news of Chromecast Ultra, a premium $70 Chromecast variant that supports 4K resolution and high dynamic range (HDR) formats, including HDR10 (but not the recently introduced HDR+) and Dolby Vision. Chromecast Audio, a $35 audio-only model that plugs into the 3.5mm audio jack of any speaker and enables high-resolution (24-bit/96 kHz) multiroom audio, also escaped mention.
In 2015, a Strategy Analytics report pegged Chromecast’s share of the global digital media streamer market at 35 percent, ahead of devices from Apple, Google, Amazon, and Roku, but a recent survey found a year-over-year dip in Chromecast usage. With today’s updates — plus the new Smart TV Kit bundle — Google’s angling to retake the lead.
Nonstop improvements Chromecast, for the uninitiated, taps a proprietary protocol — Google Cast — that streams content in one of two ways: through Cast-enabled apps, which beam TV show, movie, and video web links to a browserlike environment running on Chromecast, or mirrored from a tab within Google Chrome on a mobile phone or computer. Chromecast devices lack an infrared emitter and so can’t control every television with a remote control. But those supporting Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) automatically turn on and switch to the active HDMI input.
The video playback experience on Chromecast has improved dramatically over the years, with autoplay and content-queuing hitting the platform in 2015. Last year, Chrome gained an experimental feature that forwards bitstreams directly to Chromecast when a video is being played on the source device in full screen, improving the streaming quality of apps and websites that don’t natively support Google Cast.
May 2015 saw the introduction of new gaming-focused APIs, like Cast Remote Display, which allows developers to create second-screen experiences, and Game Manager, which offers greater control over multiplayer experiences. Much more recently, code changes in Chromium — the open source project on which the Chrome browser is built — suggest tap gestures are on the way.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Chromecast devices can mirror playback from Google’s $99 Daydream View headset, stream presentations from Google Slides, and cycle through pics from Google Photos. And they play nicely with the Google Assistant and Google Home, Google’s AI-powered voice platform and smart speaker lineup, respectively.
You can queue up previously purchased or rented movies on Chromecast with a voice command and pull up your calendar, local weather, and more. (The results are personalized to you: Google’s Voice Match tech enables different content to be shown according to which voice it detects.) Chromecast and Google Home recently gained tighter integration with YouTube Live, Google’s $35-per-month TV subscription service, allowing subscribers to not only channel surf with voice commands, but also pause, rewind, and play back content. And earlier this year, Google rolled out the ability to beam security camera feeds from Logitech’s Circle, Nest’s Nest Cam IQ, and other devices to Chromecast with a voice command.
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"Google debuts Nest Mini with wall mount and dedicated ML chip | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/15/google-debuts-nest-mini-with-wall-mount-and-dedicated-ml-chip"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google debuts Nest Mini with wall mount and dedicated ML chip Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Google Nest today introduced the second-generation version of Nest Mini, its smallest and most popular smart speaker. The Nest Mini comes with a wall mount, better bass, and a dedicated ML chip so machine learning can run locally.
The speaker will cost $49 and goes on sale October 22 in 23 countries. It comes in chalk, coral, charcoal, and a new sky blue option.
“The primary benefit of the local processing is really speed for the stuff you do every day — turning on your lights or stopping music,” Google Nest product manager Chris Chan told VentureBeat in an interview after the event.
With up to a teraop of processing power, the chip remembers things you do most often to make responses to voice commands faster. Though Nest Mini uses more on-device machine learning, the device is unable to operate without a Wi-Fi connection.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “It has a very heavy bias toward stuff happening on the device — like speech recognition, natural language understanding — it’s actually happening right there. In many cases the text synthesis, as well,” Chan said.
A faster Google Assistant with the ability to respond to multi-turn dialog is also coming to Pixel 4 smartphones.
Though more can be done with on-device machine learning using Google Assistant on Nest Mini, the device still shares voice recordings with Google and requires a Wi-Fi connection.
Since the release of the first Home Mini in 2017 , the hockey puck-shaped device has become one of the best-selling smart speakers in the world, alongside Amazon’s Echo Dot in the U.S. and Alibaba and Baidu devices in China.
Like most of the news Google announced today at its hardware event in New York City, word that a second-generation Nest Mini was in the works leaked months ago.
A wall mount offers users the option of saving counter space while still enjoying quick access to far-field voice detection. Microphones equipped with this type of AI can pick up voice commands for music or smart home control from across an average-sized room.
Naturally, competitors are working along similar lines. At an event at its headquarters in Seattle last month, Amazon introduced invite-only glasses and a ring with Alexa inside, as well as the Echo Flex , which contains a microphone and can be plugged into wall outlets to extend the range of voice recognition in the home. Like the Home Mini with wall mount, the Echo Flex is designed to let people expand the range of voice commands in their home.
A fall hardware event has become something of a tradition for Google, a time to roll out Pixel smartphones, smart speakers, and new Google Assistant features.
In keeping with expectations, Google today announced new Pixel Buds, a new Pixelbook, Nest Wifi with a Google Assistant speaker inside, and the latest version of Google’s flagship smartphone — the Pixel 4 with facial recognition and Motion Sense for quick gesture control and Google Assistant access.
At its previous hardware event, Google introduced the Home Hub , the company’s first-party smart display. Last month, Google also introduced the Nest Hub Max , a facial recognition-powered smart display that uses Google’s Face Match program to personalize what it displays, with recommendation engine results based on the person in front of the device.
Updated 9:11 a.m. to include additional information from Google Nest product manager Chris Chan.
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"Google's Stadia Controller is like a chef's knife | VentureBeat | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/15/google-stadia-controller-knife"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google’s Stadia Controller is like a chef’s knife Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Google Stadia is launching November 19. If you buy the Stadia Founder’s Edition for $129 , you can start streaming games from Google’s cloud directly to your TV.
In that Founder’s Edition, you get a Chromecast Ultra and the Stadia Controller. And during its Made By Google event today, the company shared more details about how it designed that gamepad.
Google has already revealed that Stadia Controller can connect directly to Wi-Fi to mitigate input lag.
But it has now explained that it is also prioritizing comfort. To accomplish that, the company’s designers put a lot of effort into creating a controller that works with a variety of different players. That led the designers into unconventional environments looking for inspiration.
The Stadia Controller started as a bent knife handle Google industrial designer Jason Pi found the genesis of the Stadia Controller in professional kitchens.
“I would go to these really nice kitchens, and they all have these simple knives,” said Pi. “None of them looked like grocery store knives with all the grips and details. [Those are] really uncomfortable if you rotate your hand around. The reason why most professional kitchens have knives [with simple handles] is you can use them in many ways.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Pi believed that what works for knives should work for a gamepad. So for the very first iteration of the Stadia Controller, the design team bent a standard knife handle.
“From there, that one ancestor had hundreds and hundreds of kids until it became [what we have today],” said Pi. “It’s made for small and large hands. It’s super usable for a large segment of gamers that aren’t always appreciated.” The final Stadia controller looks a lot like a PlayStation DualShock 4 or Xbox One gamepad. But it also still has the simple, rounded handles that you might expect on a professional kitchen knife. And if that makes it better at accommodating different grip styles, then Google is probably onto something. Maybe next we’ll get a handheld that is more like a cheese grater.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Nvidia launches RTX-based GeForce Now cloud gaming service for $5 per month | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/04/nvidia-launches-beta-of-geforce-now-as-a-5-per-month-cloud-gaming-service"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Nvidia launches RTX-based GeForce Now cloud gaming service for $5 per month Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn GeForce Now lets you play your Steam library via the cloud, anywhere you want.
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Nvidia has been testing its GeForce Now cloud gaming service for years. But now the company is revving up its efforts, expanding the service around the world with a free version and offering a beta for a $5 per month premium service with access to RTX-based graphics.
The move is a shot across the bow for rivals such as Microsoft’s xCloud and Google Stadia, but it’s also a push to ensure that PC gaming thrives in an age of cloud-based computing. Nvidia has been fine-tuning the service for a while, holding down its reach to 300,000 gamers. Now it is making memberships — both free and paid — available to everyone.
Rather than set up its own library of cloud games, Nvidia is enabling players to access their Steam librarie s with GeForce Now, so they can play those games anywhere they want, said Phil Eisler, general manager of GeForce Now, said in an interview with GamesBeat.
“We’re an open platform in that we don’t have our own game store,” Eisler said. “Gamers told us in an early beta that they didn’t want us to have our own game store. They just preferred we support existing game stores. So we support Steam, Uplay, and others as well as 30 free-to-play games.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! An open system that uses your game library Above: GeForce Now general manager Phil Eisler at CES 2020.
There are over 300 instant games, and you can go into Steam and download another 1,000 games before each session (known as single-session installs). GeForce Now supports multiple platforms so you can play those Steam games across the PC, Mac, TV via the Nvidia Shield, and Android mobile devices. Nvidia supports the service with 15 data centers around the world.
“We want to be the destination for PC gamers when they go to the cloud,” said Eisler. “If you are heavily invested in the Xbox ecosystem, you might as well get xCloud. If you are heavily invested in PlayStation, then you might as well get PlayStation Now. If you’re heavily invested in PC gaming, you might as well get GeForce Now. That’s what makes sense to us.” Nvidia said that more than 1.2 billion people play games on the PC, but only a fraction have a modern PC with the power to play their favorite games. If you have an old laptop, you can still play a high-end game. That’s because the game runs in the data center on an RTX graphics card. Then the video is sent via broadband to the gamers machine and it is displayed on that device, even if it is an old one. The gamer can interact with the game and then the changes are sent back to the server, which computes the changes and sends the video back down the broadband connection in real time. That’s how cloud gaming works, but the system can bog down if the internet slows down (less of a problem in the broadband age) or if too many gamers try to play at the same time.
Eisler said that Nvidia has about a million people on its waiting list for GeForce Now.
“This may be the first time that they are able to experience real-time ray tracing,” Eisler said. “The next generation of computer graphics — we’re making it available across all of our devices.” Expanded world coverage Above: GeForce Now has a free option and a paid option for $5 a month.
Of the data centers, nine are in North America, and six are in Western Europe. Nvidia says that’s enough computing capability to deliver 20 millisecond response times to 90% of broadband homes in those regions. In other regions like South Korea, Japan, and Russia, Nvidia has partnered with co-location companies that can provide low-latency game performance as well. Games can run at 60 frames a second or sometimes 120 frames per second. The GeForce Now client requires only about 100MBs of space on the client device.
Eisler said that Nvidia has now upgraded its data centers with its GeForce RTX-based graphics cards, which offer features such as real-time ray tracing for better shadows and lighting. If you want to use GeForce Now with the RTX cards, then you have to pay the $5 a month fee in the beta premium service.
The open platform means that you can play games you have already paid for. Nvidia doesn’t have to worry as much about securing exclusives for its platform because you already own the games that you want and can play them on the service. If you own Red Dead Redemption 2 on the PC, you could play it on an Android smartphone via GeForce Now.
Free versus paid options Above: GeForce Now’s pricing options.
Free players can play games with single-session installs, which means that you can play one session for one hour. After that, you save that progress and start a new session. This helps Nvidia ensure there are pauses in the gameplay and that all free players can access the servers to get their own session time.
Games get added to the service weekly based on member requests, game popularity, and publishers’ input. Nvidia said it will add Chromebooks to the mix of screens that can run GeForce Now later this year.
Over 300,000 beta testers have streamed more than 70 million hours of gameplay in 30 countries throughout North America and Europe. All GeForce Now beta testers have been converted to the free plan as of today, and others can sign up for the $5 a month, no-wait, longer session-length premium experience. These members can play for sessions up to six hours in length and access the RTX content.
With the Founders membership, Nvidia is offering the premium experience with the first three months free, followed by a discounted rate of $5 a month for all of 2020. That price is notable as it is the same that Apple charges for Apple Arcade, which has 108 games that can be played on Apple TV, Macs, or iOS devices.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now service originally used first-generation servers based on Pascal graphics processing units (GPUs), and now it is switching to Turin-based GPUs such as the RTX cards. Depending on circumstances, each GPU can handle one or two users.
“Our goal is to bring more people into PC gaming, because you know, not everybody can afford a new PC,” Eisler said.
Sustainability of cloud gaming Above: GeForce Now has 300 instant games.
Some folks are concerned cloud gaming could contribute to global warming if it becomes really popular. On the issue of sustainability , Eisler said that Nvidia is trying to reduce power consumption in its data centers. On the other hand, we may not have to recycle as many PCs if players can put off their purchases because of cloud gaming.
“We are actively working on a policy to work toward carbon neutral, but we’re not there yet. But it is something that we take seriously and the company is working towards,” he said.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets over 100 Project xCloud games on September 15 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/04/xbox-game-pass-ultimate-gets-over-100-project-xcloud-games-on-september-15"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets over 100 Project xCloud games on September 15 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn GamePass with xCloud.
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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will get access to over 100 games via the Project xCloud streaming service starting September 15, Microsoft announced today.
This means that those paying the $15 a month for Game Pass Ultimate will be able to play these 100-plus Xbox games on their Android phones or tablets, all thanks to cloud gaming technology. This further increases the value of Game Pass Ultimate, which gives members access to a library of downloadable Xbox and PC games. Xbox Games Pass has over 10 million subscribers as of April.
The Project xCloud support will be available in 22 countries, including the U.S. and United Kingdom. Microsoft is committed to adding more titles to the service, and it will have plenty of heavy-hitters in September, such as Ori and the Will of the Wisps , Gears 5, Sea of Thieves, Grounded , Forza Horizon 4, and Wasteland 3.
Project xCloud will have the same features as on other Xbox platforms, including your friends list, achievements, and saved game progress.
New accessories and peripherals Now that you can play Xbox games on your phone or tablet, Microsoft is also partnering with accessory manufacturers to release a new series of controller peripherals to help you game on those devices.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! This includes an Xbox version of the Razer Kishi, which can expand to fit the traditional Xbox button layout to the sides of your phone. It is available to purchase today and goes for $100.
Above: Accessories can make gaming with xCloud easier.
PowerA will release the MOGA XP5-X Plus, another Xbox-style controller shell for phones, on September 15 for $70. The PowerA MOGA XP7-X Plus is coming out this winter for $100 with a few extra features, including a removable stand for your phone. PowerA is also making the MOGA Mobile Gaming Clip 2, which lets you attach your phone right to an Xbox One controller. That will be available this winter for $15.
8BitDo, which specializes in retro-style controllers, is also making an Xbox-style pad that includes a clip for holding a phone. That will launch on September 21 for $50.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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Subsets and Splits
Wired Articles Filtered
Retrieves up to 100 entries from the train dataset where the URL contains 'wired' but the text does not contain 'Menu', providing basic filtering of the data.