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"Firefly raises $30 million to put electronic ads on ride-hailing cars | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/firefly-raises-30-million-to-mount-digital-display-ads-on-ride-hailing-cars"
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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 Firefly raises $30 million to put electronic ads on ride-hailing cars Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Firefly CEO Kaan Gunay (left) and CTO Onur Kardesler (right).
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The gig driving economy might be growing, but excepting cities with minimum wage laws for ride-hailing drivers, the pay certainly isn’t getting any better. Lyft says its drivers’ median earnings work out to $18.83 an hour nationally. A Buzzfeed survey found that Uber drivers in Denver, Detroit, and Houston earned just $13.25 an hour on average. And in a recent survey disputed by Uber, MIT researchers reported that Uber and Lyft drivers’ median pretax profit was $3.37 per hour.
That’s why Kaan Gunay and Onur Kardesler cofounded Firefly , a San Francisco and New York startup that works directly with ride-hailing drivers to mount ad displays on top of their cars. It launched out of beta in December 2018, and in the intervening months, it’s garnered support from brands like Brex, Segment, Caviar, Zumper, and others.
Unsurprisingly, it’s also attracted the attention of investors.
Toward that end, Firefly today revealed that it’s secured $30 million in series A financing led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), with participation from existing backer NFX. The newfound funds, which come on the heels of a $21.5 million seed funding round to bring Firefly’s total raised to $51.5 million, will be used to support “continued innovation” and scale the company’s model to new formats and markets, said Gunay. Additionally, they’ll support its acquisition of taxi advertising provider Strong Outdoor’s digital operations (a wholly owned subsidiary of Ballantyne Strong), which marks Firefly’s expansion to New York City.
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 last bit is noteworthy. Strong Outdoor claims that advertisements on its 300 full-motion displays and 3,339 two-sided displays get a collective 43.2 million impressions per day across 3,639 MTBOT Yellow Cabs. Current clients include Turkish Airlines, American Airlines, Zillow, Saks Fifth Avenue, Absolut, Netflix, Seamless, Stella Artois, Tidal, Bloomingdale’s, Hard Rock, and StreetEasy.
“We are excited about the potential for growth in digital advertising and we believe that Firefly, led by … Gunay, is the right team and platform to combine with our digital platform in New York City,” said Kyle Cerminara, CEO of investment firm Fundamental Global, Ballantyne Strong’s largest shareholder. “We look forward to being significant shareholders in Firefly and benefiting from the growth in digital at Firefly while maintaining our significant market presence in non-digital advertising at Strong.” Firefly’s digital screens, which display geotargeted ads for national and regional brands based on driver routes, area demographics, and traffic patterns, tap into the fast-growing global out-of-home ad market. Firefly’s screens earn the average driver an additional $300 per month, the company claims, or roughly 20% more profit.
The company has already achieved impressive reach. Firefly says its network gets 200 million impressions per month across 40,000 square miles of coverage, with over 650,000 hours of content played to date.
It’s not strictly a commercial venture, Gunay asserts. Firefly donates a minimum of 10% of all inventory to promote local not-for-profit organizations, public sector announcements, and non-commercial organizations such as advocacy groups and community organizations, plus an additional 10% of unsold screen time to non-chain small businesses like coffee shops, restaurants, and boutiques. And it participates in the Amber alert system and supports the Ad Council, the nonprofit organization that produces national public service campaigns, by running their public service announcements pro bono in California, with plans to extend to New York.
There’s a data-sharing element to the business, too — Firefly works with local municipal governments to provide info on city mobility, pedestrian movement, and air quality.
“Firefly is creating a significant new ad format at scale,” said GV general partner Adam Ghobarah. “In addition to taxis, the scale of rideshare networks has created a large opportunity to provide digital out of home advertising with granular city-block and time targeting. Kaan, Onur and the Firefly team have executed very well so far, and are motivated by the long-term mission of enabling cities with data.” Firefly’s previous investors include Stanford’s StartX Fund, Chesterfield Investments, Industry Ventures, Muse Capital, Cross Culture Ventures, Lime founders Toby Sun and Brad Bao, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Pelion Venture Partners, Tencent cofounder Jason Zeng’s Decent Capital, and former Shutterfly CEO and Softbank Vision Fund managing director Jeffrey Housenbold.
“We believe that all full-time drivers in New York, taxi and rideshare, should be able to make a living wage and support their families,” said Gunay. “By combining our Firefly operating system with Strong’s existing digital network, we’re able to immediately scale upon market entry so we can support the New York community with no downtime.” 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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4,614 | 2,019 |
"Chef League challenges you to improvise recipes like the pros | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/chef-league-challenges-you-to-improvise-recipes-like-the-pros"
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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 Chef League challenges you to improvise recipes like the pros Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Chef League 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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Beth Altringer ‘s Chef League mobile game on iOS is sure to make your mouth water. It is a game that challenges players to come up with the right ingredients to make a particular problem dish taste better.
You can take up challenges and compete with other human players. To spice up a dull dish, you have to select an ingredient to make it better. The game’s artificial intelligence engine will determine who gets the right answer, and the winner gets to take the ingredients of the two other losers.
“It’s a multiplayer simulation game, where we’re simulating chef skills,” Altringer said in an interview with GamesBeat. “It occurred to me that my research was in effect building a backend for a simulation game that you could learn from.” It’s a free-to-play game, but you have to acquire ingredients, either through play or by purchasing them. If you guess correctly that a burger with too much mayo could use something acidic or crunchy. Something acidic would change the taste of the mayonnaise, while something crunchy will distract you from it. If you come up with a better answer than your rival, you win.
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 genesis of Chef League Above: Beth Altringer is a Harvard professor by day with a side job of creating Chef League.
It reminded me of the genesis of Glu Mobile’s games, Covet Fashion and Design Home , made by its CrowdStar division, with different audiences in mind. Altringer was inspired in part while playing Design Home, which lets you design home interiors that are then voted on by other players. The games have big female audiences, and they’re designed for new kinds of players.
Altringer is a Harvard engineering professor by day. But she played Design Home and found it fun and relaxing. But she hoped that she could make something herself that could teach people something about one of her favorite hobbies. She was deep into advanced flavor analytics.
“I happen to be really into food and I am a big nerd,” she said. “I have been studying how humans taste perception as flavor and how chefs learn to improvise. It’s not like there is a standard chef training. All of them acquire literacy in flavor, but they do it in different ways. I built software that would allow you to navigate flavor like an expert, even if you’re a novice.” Above: Chef League challenges you to fix a dish with better flavor.
A lot of other cooking games are on mobile devices, including Diner Dash and Glu’s Gordon Ramsay Dash.
But a lot of those are about time management rather than learning about cooking.
“They are about chef skills, but not about flavor,” Altringer said. “I wanted something different and wasn’t able to find it somewhere else.” And Chef League has the science of flavor analytics behind it. It gamifies learning for understanding why people like certain kinds of foods. It also features photorealistic food imagery, while other games are animated. It features multiplayer competition inspired by cooking shows, and it has bite-sized game sessions. It is targeted for both gamers and non-gamers alike.
Above: Chef League’s opening screen Altringer worked on it for three years. Chef League features a set of “AI Chefs” that live inside the game. These chefs represent common preference patterns derived from scientific flavor data and 1.5 million natural language reviews of real recipes.
They function like automated reality TV chef judges, each ‘voting’ according to historical palate preferences. They exist to help players casually learn. You have a pantry of items you own and a shop where you can buy new items. The AI chef coach gives you real feedback. If the winner isn’t clear, it goes to social voting.
“Our automated judging is based on historical data, but there are other things people love that experts wouldn’t necessarily advocate,” Altringer said.
Doing food research Above: Beth Altringer (tallest), Tracy Chang, and her friends.
During graduate school, Altringer trained with the Cambridge University Blind Wine Tasting Society and went on to compete internationally, winning the competition hosted by Bollinger Champagne House in France.
In 2015, she began quantifying flavor more broadly, creating the Flavor Genome Project (FGP) to study patterns in food flavor perception. The project integrated scientific flavor data, analysis of real recipe reviews, and research on how chefs and sommeliers learn.
She learned, for instance, why french fries go well with ketchup.
“French fries are a predominantly fatty taste,” she said. “It’s the fattiness that people are after. And if something is too fatty, then cutting it with acidity improves the perceived balance. Tomatoes are highly acidic. And ketchup is also sweet, but it is also a lot more acidic than people probably realize. And that combination is really nice.” In 2017, Altringer took that research and started creating a game that could teach amateur cooks about the ways that chefs think about flavor. That, in turn, might help people make healthier, more flavorful choices in preparing their own food. Altringer recently held a party with Boston chef Tracy Chang, who helped her as a friend on how chefs think.
Making it fun Above: Chef League’s recent party “Flavor data exists in a lot of places, from cookbooks to flavor media TV shows, to online recipes,” Altringer said. “When we consume that data, you learn to copy the recipe. But you don’t learn what makes that recipe taste so good compared to a different recipe. I think a natural future for food media includes games, and this is an attempt at that.” Altringer tried to make sure that the game wasn’t too hard. She didn’t want you to be an expert to just be able to play the game. And she didn’t want to make it so you put bacon on everything in order to win.
“Our automated judging is based on historical data, but there are other things people love that experts wouldn’t necessarily advocate,” Altringer said.
Above: Chef League’s challenges Altringer, who has a master’s degree in architecture, was trained as a designer. She created almost all of it herself. Now she wants to find others to work with to help craft it into a better game so that she can do updates. She has some helpers now and is looking for more.
The game does not have a ton of players yet, but the average play sessions are 30 minutes to an hour, and the average number of sessions per day is 3.5.
“Our goal is to make sure that this will be something that a lot of people will enjoy playing as a relaxing game,” Altringer said. “We will learn fast and improve it.” 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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"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's photogrammetry captures gritty realism like never before | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/call-of-duty-modern-warfares-photogrammetry-captures-gritty-realism-like-never-before"
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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 Preview Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s photogrammetry captures gritty realism like never before 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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Call of Duty games have been known for pushing the edge of technology on the consoles and the PC. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare lives up to that tradition thanks to improved graphics technologies such as photogrammetry.
When Modern Warfare ships on October 25, it will feature a new game engine that delivers one of the most immersive and photorealistic experiences in a combat game, based on a preview I saw at Infinity Ward , the studio that is making the game and is the shepherd of the Modern Warfare franchise.
All of this in-game technology makes the game more gritty, intense, and emotional. And coupled with the content, it can inspire some very intense emotions. I found it to be quite horrifying.
Cool tech 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! It has a physically based material system, with modern photogrammetry. Objects in the game world look like they do in the real world, with reflections. I don’t know how good it will look on the older technology on the consoles, but on the PC, Modern Warfare will be able to take advantage of new graphics processing units (GPUs) like the Nvidia GeForce RTX family.
It has a new hybrid tile-based streaming system, new physically based rendering that models light better, world volumetric lighting, 4K HDR for better lighting, DirectX raytracing (on the PC) and a new GPU geometry pipeline. Principal rendering engineer Michal Drobot said that the engine can take all kinds of layers of materials, mesh them together, and make everything come out looking realistic.
It has spectral rendering that delivers thermal heat radiation and infrared identification for both thermal and night-vision in-game imaging.
The technical investment made provides a cutting-edge animation system and blend shape system, Activision said. The new suite of audio of tools allows for full Dolby Atmos support, on supported platforms, along with the latest in audio simulation effects.
Ghillie suits, or camouflage with grass hanging everywhere, looks a lot more realistic, studio art director Joel Emslie said.
Making a new kind of game Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Infinity Ward coupled this technology with research on warfare, including consultations with U.S. Navy Seals. Emslie said that one of his artists was messing around with photogrammetry. It’s not new, but it has gotten good in the last two years based on the software you can run with it, Emslie said.
“It changes the way we build the game,” Emslie said.
Even the rocks look awesome, and the process is more automated than it has been in the past, thanks to things like real-time ray tracing. Something that once took six months can now be scanned in an afternoon and put in the game, he said.
With a feature dubbed “micro-tiling,” you can go up to a wall or another object and see lots of details. But when you move away, those details vanish and the processing required for it doesn’t tax the player’s machine.
Dead bodies now look far more realistic, partly because Infinity Ward scanned the bodies of its staff members who volunteered to lie on the ground. The team swept landscapes with drones, capturing the detail in three dimensions via drone cameras, and used them as the foundations for the landscapes in the games. The real landscapes blended seamlessly into the gamescapes.
The team used real actors to play roles such as Captain Price. Then they did face and body capture, using the full performance of the actors as characters in the game.
Sound and animations Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare The visceral nature of the combat applies to the sound and animations, too.
Animation director Mark Grigsby and audio director Stephen Miller said in a presentation that the sound of the guns will be more realistic. A weapon will sway in your hand when you are standing still. The reloads will be more visceral. When you eject spent bullets, the shell casings will bounce on the ground and make tinkering noises. A soldier’s walking and running speed will be more realistic.
If you are holding a light machine gun, it will be heavier and slow you down. If you are aiming down the site and you need to reload, you can keep your eye on the target and do the reload without dropping the gun away from the target. The game’s Navy Seals advisers told the developers that they keep their eyes on the target while reloading.
“We are moving toward realism,” Grigsby said. “The effect when the bullet travels and hits the target has been another thing we focused on.” They showed us a scene in Picadilly Square in London, after a bomb goes off and the streets are deserted.
“Our gun is a character, and each character needs to have its own unique voice,” Miller said. Each gun sounds different. The team used 20 different microphones to capture the sound of every weapon being fired. If you fire inside a subway corridor, it sounds much different with echoes than if you are firing in open air. There are multiple audio engines, and you hear three distinct sounds at the point of impact of a bullet. Explosion sounds are also shallower or deeper, depending on the environment.
“As you are running around, you get different sound constantly, as it behaves with the geometry,” Miller 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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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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"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare impressions -- Taking war in a frightening direction | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-impressions-taking-war-in-a-frightening-direction"
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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: Modern Warfare impressions — Taking war in a frightening direction 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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I have been a Call of Duty fan from the first game in 2003. But I have never wondered about this question before, until now. Should this particular game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare , be made? The small glimpse I’ve seen of it so far tells me no.
Activision is announcing today that Modern Warfare will ship on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25. It is an important game for a corporation that has been weakened by the loss of its Destiny franchise and the fizzling of Skylanders. To date, Call of Duty has sold more than 300 million copies.
The publisher’s Infinity Ward studio recently showed a part of the single-player campaign for an upcoming installment of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and it has scenes and gameplay in it that are very disturbing to me. It brings to mind the No Russian controversy, where civilians are mowed down in a Russian airport in 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
I was quite uncomfortable as I watched a gameplay demo of Modern Warfare, which is more than just a remake of 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The demo, which will be shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) game trade show in June, has two parts. In both cases, the safety of civilians comes into question.
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! Infinity Ward developers got up onstage at a recent event at the studio’s headquarters in Southern California. Then they showed a press group the scenes. They warned us the game would be mature, authentic, and gritty. No longer would we be jumping about like superheroes. It is grounded in realistic, modern combat and “a complex world that mirrors our own.” Activision says the game has an “incredibly raw, gritty, provocative narrative that brings unrivaled intensity and shines a light on the changing nature of modern war.” The premise is that the rules of war have changed. It’s not black-and-white — it’s gray, with a fine line between right and wrong. And yet, undoubtedly, this gritty single-player campaign will be coupled with multiplayer combat where killing is a sport. If you put these things together with extremely realistic human characters, it becomes even more disturbing.
A dream come true Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Studio director Taylor Kurosaki and campaign director Jacob Minkoff explained some of Infinity Ward’s intentions. Kurosaki said that the team had to take into account that many of today’s players have never played the original Modern Warfare. So they decided to do a reimagining, rather than a sequel or remake. The team put the storyline to bed, took some of the good things (such as characters like Soap), and created it for 2019, inspired by “the world we are living in today,” Kurosaki said.
“The battlefield has never been less defined. Enemies more often than not don’t wear uniforms. That means collateral damage, civilians, is a greater part of the equation now than it has ever been,” he said. “Those situations are what our heroes are up against.” This Modern Warfare is about characters thrown into moral conflict under the pressures of war, he said.
“This is the most authentic and realistic game we’ve ever made,” Minkoff said. “Taylor and I, as storytellers, all we ever really want to do is make players feel something. I remember playing the first Modern Warfare in the AC-130 mission. The aerial combat. You are firing down at enemies below. Thermal vision. There is no consequence. They cannot hurt you. All you are hearing deadpan is ‘Lots of little pieces.’ That feeling, I found profoundly uncomfortable. … It felt too easy. It felt dishonorable. It felt wrong. But I understood I was protecting my allies. I understood why this tactic is used in real life. It made sense. For the first time, I felt why it is emotionally uncomfortable. And then every time I saw it in the news from then on, I thought about that experience. That game made me think about the real world in a completely different way.” He added, “We’ve done a ton of research coming into this game. What we’ve determined is social commentary like that has always been in the DNA of Modern Warfare. We’ve sent research teams around the world. Players have unanimously told us they want those emotional connections. They want complex, morally gray characters. They want gameplay that feels ripped from the headlines and delivers relevant, relatable, and provocative moments that only Modern Warfare would have the guts to show. For me, as a developer who wants to push the medium forward and do things people have never seen before, getting to work on a franchise, Modern Warfare, where that is expected, is a dream come true.” Shooting unarmed women or terrorists? Above: Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare debuts on October 25.
In the first scene, terrorists attack central London. A team of British SAS operatives gathers in front of a townhouse that they suspect harbors a terrorist cell. In a manner that resembles a raid in Rainbow Six: Siege, they gather together to storm the house. The music is menacing. The military chatter is by the book. And the people look so real. If you passed by a TV with someone playing the game, you could easily mistake the game for a segment of a documentary about the war in Syria.
That’s because the game developers used a new kind of photogrammetry technique to render the backgrounder, character bodies, and character faces. The commander warns there may be non-combatants on the scene, so “check your shots.” The camera’s view is very close as the soldiers kick their way or vault into the house with guns drawn. The sound of breaking windows and gunfire is stark. They smash the door on the lower level while another soldier goes through an upper-story window. A dog barks.
As with Rainbow Six, the important choice that you must make as a soldier is to move into the room quickly and decide fast who to save or who to shoot. I did not play this mission; the Infinity Ward staff played it for us in a dark theater.
But the game differs from other gritty combat games based on who is in each room. The characters appear to be Muslim terrorist fighters in mostly civilian garb. But those characters include both men and women.
One of the women runs for a baby. Fortunately, the developers told me later, you cannot shoot that woman or that baby. She surrenders.
But in another room, a woman runs for a gun. She prepares to shoot. You have to kill her. Your silenced weapon makes muffled noises, and bodies hit the floor. Up close and personal. The same goes for other armed men in the place. In another room, shots are fired through the door before you can respond. One enemy is wounded and gurgles his last breaths. A woman cries in the background. One of your soldiers goes down. You fire into the door or fire into the wall, and the enemy goes down.
And in the final room, you confront an unarmed woman. She tries to divert you. She moves despite your warnings to stop. She then grabs a bomb detonator. You have to shoot her.
This is the nature of modern combat, the developers say. But this should not be a part of a modern video game, in my opinion, given the thin line between civilians and warriors and given the impression it creates in our world, which is driven by social media sound and video bites. It looks so much like you are killing innocent civilians. And if you make a mistake, you are.
I am told that the narrative of the story, which is generally secret, will explain the context for this scene. But as it is, as I’ve seen it, I found it profoundly disturbing and unjustifiable. After showing us this scene, the developers at Infinity Ward went right into a presentation where they said, “We’d like to talk to you about the star of the game, which is the weapons.” Sadly, I do not have pictures of this scene to show you.
Fighting as a child Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare The demo then shifted to a Middle Eastern country. My guess was that it was Syria, but the game doesn’t tell you where it is.
It is a chaotic environment. You’re buried under rubble. Your voice is a child, and you soon see that you are a young girl. You are trapped in a building that has been blown up. You make noises, and people outside with muffled voices can hear you.
Slowly, they dig their way to you. They lift concrete blocks and you emerge, unhurt. But a woman who appears to be your mother lies dead beside you. You are unscathed and begin running home. You find your father there.
But Russian soldiers arrive, and they start launching canisters that emit a green gas. It’s poison gas, and other civilians in the village start choking and dying. You run inside the home, where your brother has closed the windows.
Your father prepares an escape, but a Russian soldier comes in the house. Your father tries to reason with him, but the soldier guns him down. Then he hunts the children. You are still playing as the young girl, and you hide. You can crawl through a hole in a wall and sneak up on the soldier. You grab a knife and stab him in the leg. He shakes you off and you run away, escaping through the hole again.
You do that repeatedly, and eventually both you and your brother kill the soldier. One of you grabs his gas mask and you escape. You hold your breath and then run off, picking up a second gas mask. You pass by Russian soldiers who are executing civilians. And eventually, you get away.
Should these scenes be in the game? Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare This Modern Warfare will be controversial, and it might just be popular because of that controversy, if the company can weather the storm of criticism. But it would be a very cynical path to popularity. I would encourage the developers to examine whether they should include the scenes I’ve seen. Sure, it is realistic, and things like this happen in the world.
One good question is “Are these scenes really so bad?” We’ve seen worse in modern movies, video games, and even on YouTube, as those who depict the horrors of war try to outdo each other. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 had a scene where a bomb killed a child and her family. Modern Warfare 2 probably sold better because of the No Russian controversy.
This one feels worse.
My reaction is not that the developers should censor themselves or someone else should censor them. My question is about choices. We can make this kind of game, but should we? But should this kind of content, which we can see in movies or books, be in a video game? Should they be depicted in a form of art where we have so much agency? It’s going to be a Mature-rated game that kids shouldn’t play, but I had a conversation with an Uber driver who told me he lets his 6-year-old play Call of Duty.
“I played Mortal Kombat when I was little, and it didn’t affect me,” he said.
I would like a Call of Duty game that makes me think hard, feels intense, and is fun to play. And I usually shrug off criticism from people who say these games are too violent. As far as I can tell, you still play the “good guys” in this game. Michael Condrey, the former co-head of Activision’s Sledgehammer Games, said at our recent GamesBeat Summit event that, in the age of the shooting at Christchurch in New Zealand , is it really appropriate to make a game like Modern Warfare today.
This game will give fuel to those who hate. On the one hand, some groups will be outraged that their people are branded as terrorists and enemies. They will share snippets of this game on social media that will take the violence out of context. Groups of outraged lawmakers, parents, and nongamers will turn their ire toward all of gaming. If you’re a game developer at the peak of your talents, why would you step into this lion’s den? You would have to have a very good reason, and so far, I do not see it.
If this game goes down the wrong road, that would be a shame, as there are elements of high-quality art in this effort. There may very well be good context in the story of the game, but Activision and Infinity Ward aren’t saying much about the story yet. The developers say they are going for something like “ Jaws , not Saw.
” Conclusion Modern Warfare is bloody, but it’s not a sea of blood spraying everywhere. But sometimes the medium is the message. Sometimes the horror of a particular scene outweighs the point that you’re trying to make. There may be a message in what the developers intend, but it might be overshadowed.
I think of the anti-war movie Apocalypse Now , which had the memorable Ride of the Valkyries scene, where a mad colonel orders an attack on a Vietnamese village so that his guys can surf. It was an excellent commentary on the insanity of war. But it was executed so well as a combat scene that, in my opinion, it probably inspired a lot of young people to enlist in the military. Art can often have unintentional effects. And that is why my favorite quote is from Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night, where an American spy does his cover job of being a Nazi propagandist too well. The line is, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” This is supposed to be a video game. It will undoubtedly have a multiplayer element, where players shoot each other for fun and have a hell of a time doing it. That’s when we’ll see that “guns are the star of the show.” And the incongruity of it all will be clear.
The overall dramatic effect of the intense scenes should be memorable and artistic. Not gratuitous or base. The developers can fall back on the argument that this is our world. Their game is “ripped from the headlines.” But this puts us on a slippery slope toward a lot of things. What about school shootings? What about Christchurch? Do we want to put those in video games because they exist in the real world? This preview requires us to trust the developer. But in this case, Infinity Ward has not delivered as well as its sister studios Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. The studio keeps skating closer to the edge in order to make us uncomfortable. We can view that cynically. As gamers, we don’t necessarily trust Infinity Ward to deliver an elevated experience, given the pressures it is under.
Sometimes you have to judge something on just what your eyes tell you. And my vote is that this single-player campaign should not ship with these scenes.
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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"Blockchain Credit Partners (BCP) Launches World's First Tokenized High-Yield Private Credit Fund | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/blockchain-credit-partners-bcp-launches-worlds-first-tokenized-high-yield-private-credit-fund"
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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 Press Release Blockchain Credit Partners (BCP) Launches World’s First Tokenized High-Yield Private Credit Fund Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The BCP High-Yield Fund is backed by US Assets, Provides Quarterly Payments, and is endorsed by The Institute for Blockchain Innovation (IBI) and Blockchain, Fintech & Financial Services Leaders PALM BEACH, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 30, 2019– Blockchain Credit Partners (BCP), www.BlockchainCreditPartners.com , announced today the launch of the world’s first Tokenized High-Yield Private Credit Fund with a focus on providing consistent high-yield cash flow payments through lending against secured assets. The fund has chosen to use the Securitize platform and protocol for the issuance and lifecycle management of the fund. The Securitize DS Protocol will allow for future compliant trading of the fund on an authorized Alternative Trading System.
The BCP High-Yield Fund is the first time a high-yield private credit fund has been tokenized using the blockchain. The primary focus of the fund is on two segments of secured lending: Autos, and Real Estate. Loans will be in a senior secured position with attractive Loan-To-Value (LTV) ratios. The fund looks to provide consistent high-yield quarterly payments that are secured by hard assets on an over collateralized basis.
The BCP High-Yield Fund leverages the Managing Partners’ Gregory Keough and Derek Acree substantial experience in the traditional and online secured lending space. They have also served as C- Level executives at Global Fortune 500 enterprises.
The BCP Fund advisors and partners include a who’s who in the digital securities, blockchain, and traditional investments arenas and include: The Institute for Blockchain Innovation (IBI) , a global think tank composed of global pioneers in the Digital Securities (Security Token) and Blockchain Payments space who are building the future of financial systems on the blockchain Associate Professor of Finance at University of Oregon, Visiting Fellow, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Partner at Collaborative Fund, Steve McKeon.
President, Securitize, Jamie Finn : Serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Securitize one of the leading digital security platforms for tokenized securities.
With additional advisors to be announced shortly.
Investing in High-Yield Private Credit has previously been reserved almost exclusively for ultra-high net worth private banking clients or hedge fund investors. The BCP Fund tokenization opens this investment opportunity up to global investors who are seeking secured high-yield cash flows.
Carlos Domingo , CEO & Co-founder Securitize, stated “We fully support the innovation of new financial products that re-imagine the traditional fund industry. Especially products that were previously only accessible to hedge funds or ultra-high net worth clients. Tokenized products running on our DS Protocol will allow funds to trade on regulated marketplaces and provide investors with additional benefits beyond the 7 year lock up model found currently in most private credit funds.” About Blockchain Credit Partners (BCP): Blockchain Credit Partners (BCP) is pioneering the re-imagination of the fund industry using blockchain technology. Investing in High-Yield Private Credit has previously been reserved almost exclusively for ultra-high net worth private banking clients or hedge fund investors. BCP is making this asset class accessible for a broader group of investors while leveraging the blockchain and tokenization.
For more information: www.BlockchainCreditPartners.com About Securitize: Securitize delivers trusted global solutions for creating compliant digital securities. The Securitize compliance platform and protocol provide a proven, full-stack solution for issuing and managing digital securities (security tokens). Securitize’s innovative DS Protocol has the highest adoption rate in the industry and enables seamless, fully compliant trading across multiple markets simultaneously. Multiple Securitize powered digital securities are already trading globally on public marketplaces with many more in the pipeline.
For more information contact: [email protected] Disclaimer This press release should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security in any jurisdiction where such an offer or solicitation would be illegal. We are not soliciting any action based on this material. It is for the general information of our clients. It does not constitute a recommendation or take into account the particular investment objectives, financial conditions, or needs of individual clients. Before acting on this material, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and, if necessary, seek professional advice. The price and value of the investments referred to in this material and the income from them may go down as well as up, and investors may realize losses on any investments. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. Future returns are not guaranteed, and a loss of original capital may occur. We do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice to our clients, and all investors are advised to consult with their tax, accounting, or legal advisers regarding any potential investment.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190530005672/en/ Blockchain Credit Partners Kira Mendez 561-408-7968 [email protected] 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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"BigTime Software Closes $14 Million Growth Equity Investment Led by Wavecrest Growth Partners | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/bigtime-software-closes-14-million-growth-equity-investment-led-by-wavecrest-growth-partners"
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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 Press Release BigTime Software Closes $14 Million Growth Equity Investment Led by Wavecrest Growth Partners Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Growth Equity Firm’s first Chicago Investment is in a Fast Growing B2B Firm that Plans to Add 75 People to Chicago Operations CHICAGO & BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 30, 2019– BigTime Software , a leading provider of cloud-based software for professional services firms, today announced that it has closed a $14 million investment led by Boston-based private equity firm Wavecrest Growth Partners, with participation from MassMutual Ventures and Migration Capital.
Chicago-based BigTime Software provides more than 2,000 professional services firms with an integrated “all-in-one” solution for budgeting, tracking, managing and invoicing within project-based firms. The firm was started in 2002 and bootstrapped by University of Chicago graduate Brian Saunders, who created the firm’s first software product, quickly transforming BigTime into an industry leading SaaS company. The firm has won numerous recognitions including being included in G2 Crowd’s Top 100 Software Companies, winning the Gold Stevie Award in the Cloud ERP space and being named a top Quickbooks-integrated app by Intuit Software.
Wavecrest Growth Partners is a Boston based growth equity firm that partners with B2B technology entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley to accelerate growth and build sustainable operating models.
“We are excited to make the first of what we hope will be many investments in standout high-growth B2B companies in Chicago that are well run and ready to scale. BigTime has the technology platform and reputation to become the go-to solution in the professional services space,” said Vaibhav Nalwaya, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Wavecrest. “Brian and his team have built a solid foundation with a highly capital-efficient mindset. Now — with the right senior team and a few best practices, we’re confident we can scale it up over the next several years.” While this is the first Chicago investment for Wavecrest, its principals have been enthusiastic supporters of the Chicago tech ecosystem for many years. As an investor at his prior firm, Mr. Nalwaya built a close relationship with Godard Abel and his executive team at Chicago-based BigMachines, which was ultimately successfully acquired by Oracle. Mr. Abel is currently the CEO of Chicago-based G2.
“We made a decision in mid-2018 that the demand for our enterprise product was simply too high for us to be able to meet without significant additional investment in our sales and marketing engine. During our more than 50 discussions with investment firms, Wavecrest was a clear standout in terms of both their transparency as well as their deep knowledge around scaling companies like ours. They just got it: understood our position, and what we needed to do operationally,” said Brian Saunders, founder and CEO of BigTime Software. “Not only has the Wavecrest team helped other firms scale up, every CEO they have worked with holds them in extremely high regard.” The new funding will be used to add depth to Big Time’s senior management team, accelerate growth in sales and marketing, and fast track additional product development hires within its Chicago team.
ABOUT BIGTIME SOFTWARE, INC.
BigTime Software, Inc. is dedicated to developing practice management tools that help growing professional services firms track, manage and invoice their time. Its award-winning industry-specific solutions are designed to speak the language of consultants of all stripes, from engineering and architecture to IT services. To see why thousands of customers rely on BigTime’s cloud-based tools to more easily manage their businesses and effectively plan for tomorrow, visit bigtime.net.
ABOUT WAVECREST GROWTH PARTNERS Based in Boston, Wavecrest Growth Partners is a growth equity firm focused on investing in and partnering with leading B2B software and technology-enabled services companies. Wavecrest targets investments in profitable, high-growth technology companies with proven business models and brings to bear a unique combination of investing and operating expertise. Wavecrest’s co-founders have three decades of combined investing and operating experience in growth-stage B2B technology companies. For more information, visit wavecrestgrowth.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190530005594/en/ Elizabeth Saunders (630) 546-5941 [email protected] 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.
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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"Auto Chess on mobile is improving ... but confusing | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/auto-chess-on-mobile-is-improving-but-confusing"
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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 Auto Chess on mobile is improving … but confusing Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Auto Chess mobile beta still has some localization quirks.
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The race to cash in on the year’s hottest mod, Dota Auto Chess , is well on its way. Last week, Valve announced that it’d be making its own version, and the original creators — Drodo Studio — have also soft-launched a beta version of the game on Android — and just today on iOS.
As a game, in terms of how pieces interact and matches are won, Auto Chess is almost exactly the same on mobile as it is on desktop — although recent piece additions, like the gods Mars and Zeus, aren’t present. So I’m going to be focusing on how the game fits on phone/mobile, rather than how good it is as a game (I think it’s great as a game!).
In theory, mobile should be an ideal fit for the intoxicating mix of tower defense, squad management, battle royale, and deck-building that Auto Chess provides. Player interaction is simple, and it’s more about long-term planning than skills that would require the precision of a mouse. And while mobile Auto Chess succeeds fantastically at interface improvement, some of the transition creates visual confusion.
Touching is believing The key component to the positive changes in mobile Auto Chess is that the game is no longer a mod, and a lot of the quirks associate with being a mod have been polished out. For example, one of the first hurdles to getting into the Dota Auto Chess mod is that you do not directly move your pieces with your mouse, but instead control one of Dota 2’s courier units, who moves to your bench and tosses units out into the field when you press Q and only then click and move.
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! On mobile, you touch and drag with your finger. This is a slight improvement.
There are several other small improvements like this, too. Item combining, handled through the Dota 2 interface on desktop, is confusing especially if you don’t have years of Dota 2 knowledge as to what items combine with one another. On mobile, however, not only do you get a notification that items can be combined, and what other potential combo options would be available, but that notification shows up even if you’ve already given a character an item.
As someone who had played the desktop Auto Chess without previous knowledge of Dota 2, this combination mechanic was almost always impenetrable to me. But on mobile, that’s largely fixed.
Finally, it’s not an interface issue, but Auto Chess on mobile finds matches like a dream in the way that the mod version always struggled to. It was not uncommon for Dota Auto Chess matches to take 10-15 minutes to get into, just because of the way the mod worked through the Dota 2 architecture, with players readying up multiple times, servers seeming to not exist, and so forth.
Above: Still incredibly satisfying in mobile Auto Chess to have a dominant match.
On mobile, I don’t think it’s taken me longer than a minute to find and enter a match, whether Casual or Ranked. For that alone, I’ll find it impossible to go back … even though there are some negatives.
Seeing is not While the mechanical interface (how you manipulate the game via actions) is dramatically improved from the mod, the visual interface — how you understand the game at a glance — has suffered quite a bit in the transition to the smaller screen.
There are two big reasons for this. First, Auto Chess is a complicated game, with up to 20 pieces on the board all blasting each other with a variety of different attacks and special moves. It takes a fair amount of practice to even to understand what is happening onscreen, in particular, why you might be losing to a specific opponent’s composition. Even more simply, on the damage done part of the screen or at the end of a match, a set of pixel art icons depict which units are which and … I can’t read them. They seem to have half the detail of the commensurate icons on the mod version.
Above: The chaos of a full fight in Auto Chess’ mobile version… Despite having that background on the desktop, I still haven’t been able to “read” a basic round of combat in mobile Auto Chess. I’m on a Motorola Moto G6, which, while not exactly cutting edge, doesn’t have a screen small enough that this should be a problem. It might be better to play on a tablet.
The other issue is that because Auto Chess is no longer directly connected to Dota’s IP, the different hero units have all been remixed and received new art. While some, like the Ogre Magi — now the “Orge Mage” to my delight — are almost identical. Others, like the Trolls becoming the “Glacier Clan,” are much less recognizable.
(Hilariously, this means that there are now generic fantasy versions of Dota 2 characters, itself generic versions of Warcraft characters, which was a semi-knockoff of Warhammer Fantasy, which was a generic fantasy pastiche to begin with.) Above: …compared to the ever-so-slightly more readable chaos of the Dota 2 Auto Chess mod.
The new art style is perhaps more mobile-friendly — brighter colors, bigger heads and faces — but that comes at a cost of being able to recognize units on the field. If I didn’t have the prior expertise of the Dota 2 mod, then worked to translate that knowledge via the new unit names, I wouldn’t have a clue what was happening. I still barely do have that clue.
For that reason, although the interface advantages would seem to make this the ideal form for new Auto Chess players, I can’t fully say that this is the way you should try to play the game.
Conclusion Drodo’s mobile Auto Chess is a significantly better way to play the original great mod if you already know and comprehend the original game, and for that, it should be a success. But it feels like a perhaps smaller-scale version of Auto Chess, one designed around the small screen both visually and as a game, might be the one to take over the world like previous mods have.
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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"AI Weekly: California is trying to control big tech | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ai-weekly-california-is-trying-to-control-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: California is trying to control 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.
Learn more.
Tech giants are facing threats of regulation on many fronts, but in the months ahead, California is poised to become ground zero. A new feature for Amazon’s Alexa might be indicative of that fact.
On Wednesday, Amazon rolled out voice commands to delete the recordings that take place every time you use the “Alexa” wake word so users can protect their privacy without the need to open the Alexa app or dig through the Amazon website.
That’s good news for people worried that Alexa might inadvertently share their voice recordings with other people — as has happened in the past on multiple occasions — or that people may manually review their recordings.
An Amazon spokesperson told VentureBeat the voice command was added to show Amazon’s commitment to privacy. The more likely reason is because Amazon is smart enough to see the regulatory writing on the wall.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Just hours before the new voice command was announced, the California State Assembly passed the Anti-Eavesdropping Act.
The legislation will now be considered by the California State Senate. AB 1395 requires the makers of ambient listening devices like smart speakers to receive consent from users before recording their voices. Legislation nearly passed last month by the Illinois state legislature would have done the same.
In addition to Alexa’s newfound commitment to privacy, tech giants like Facebook and Google have been vocal in recent weeks about the importance of privacy. Both have had some pretty serious security breaches in recent months.
At the F8 developer conference in April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared “The future is private” and expounded on plans to make end-to-end encryption part of all of its messaging apps.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has also been talking aggressively about his company’s belief in privacy for all, and rolled out things like Incognito Mode for Google Maps and new privacy commitments.
Privacy has become a selling point Recent actions by tech giants appear to be an attempt to prove they can regulate themselves, as well as a way to shield against regulatory action to come.
Regulation of tech companies could very well become a talking point in the coming election year, particularly among people like presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who will make an appearance today in Oakland and has said Facebook, Google, and Amazon should be broken up.
But barring federal action, legislative bodies at both the state and local level have become a battleground in the privacy debate across the United States, perhaps in no place as much as California.
Beginning January 1, 2020, tech giants will have to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
AB 375, aka the CCPA, was passed in 2018 and requires businesses respond to consumer requests to delete their data and explain how it’s used. Businesses that fail to comply can face legal action or fines.
Tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Lyft are seeking a number of amendments before the law goes into effect.
As the fifth largest economy in the world and home to companies like Google and Facebook, privacy policy in California could, like GDPR in Europe, have an outsized influence on tech data collection and privacy policy far beyond its borders.
But it’s not just privacy. In addition to legislation to regulate smart speakers and other ambient listening devices, on Wednesday the California State Assembly also passed AB 5 , a bill to make it tougher to label workers as independent contractors instead of employees.
These fights mirror those around facial recognition software use by governments. Amazon’s Rekognition has become a poster child for surveillance capitalism and dystopian fear of a surveillance state.
Introduced last week, legislation in the California State Senate would outlaw facial recognition use on police body cam footage. This follows a ban of facial recognition in San Francisco.
Oakland and Berkeley are considering a similar ban.
Each of these pieces of legislation related to privacy could be addressed with overarching privacy legislation from Washington D.C. However amendments to the CCPA turn out, it seems like a step in the direction of empowering consumers and perhaps someday federal law.
Until then, expect to hear politicians and tech company leaders and lobbyists tell you how much they care about privacy. As such a populous state and large economy, to some extent it’s always been a smart thing to pay attention to California, but watch what happens in the months ahead, not just in Silicon Valley but also Sacramento. Major changes could be on the horizon for privacy, facial recognition, ambient listening devices, and the future of the gig economy, and those changes will have impact that goes beyond California.
Thanks for reading, Khari Johnson AI Staff Writer For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers — and be sure to bookmark our AI Channel and subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter.
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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4,621 | 2,019 |
"Google Maps now highlights popular dishes at restaurants | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-maps-now-highlights-popular-dishes-at-restaurants"
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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 Maps now highlights popular dishes at restaurants Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Maps: Wheelchair accessibility 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 Maps can now share the most popular dishes at a restaurant anytime you pull up a listing with the app. Starting today, this works worldwide for Google Maps users on Android devices and is coming soon for iOS users. The new feature uses machine learning to match the names of a restaurant’s most talked-about dishes with online photos and reviews to share the deliciousness alongside things like store hours and location.
The news comes after a series of changes in recent weeks to make it easier to order food with Google and advance the interoperability between native offerings like Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Google Search results.
Earlier this week, Google launched the ability to use Lens computer vision to highlight the best meals on a restaurant menu using your smartphone camera, a feature first introduced earlier this month at the I/O developer conference.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Last week, Google brought popular food delivery services like DoorDash and Postmates directly to Google Assistant and Google Search results as well as Google Maps listings to make it easy to order food without the need to open another app. Google Assistant hands-free voice commands can be used to quickly order a meal or reorder a favorite from a local take-out or delivery spot. At launch this feature is focused on Google Assistant on smartphones but is likely to be introduced for smart displays in the future.
Google Assistant was brought to the Google Maps app in January to help drivers get around, find local business listings, and send SMS, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp messages.
In other recent initiatives, Google launched a pilot program with New York City MTA to provide bus and train times through Home speakers, following the introduction of step-by-step public transit directions on Maps in late 2017.
Google is also testing Mini-apps for search results with call-to-action buttons to do things like begin an online course or complete a purchase. Mini-apps would also appear in response to queries on Google Assistant smart displays.
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.
All rights reserved.
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4,622 | 2,019 |
"Facebook's AI learns how to get around an office by watching videos | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebooks-ai-learns-how-to-get-around-an-office-by-watching-videos"
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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 AI learns how to get around an office by watching videos 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.
Humans undertake high-level planning every day, but it’s not so easy for robots. Fortunately, a growing body of work suggests that hierarchal abstractions (namely visuomotor subroutines) can boost sample efficiency in reinforcement learning, an AI training technique that employs rewards to drive agents toward goals. Traditionally, these hierarchies must be handcoded or acquired via end-to-end training, which requires time, attention, and lots of patience. But in a newly published preprint paper (“ Learning Navigation Subroutines by Watching Videos “) on Arxiv.org, scientists at Facebook AI Research, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign describe a system that learns hierarchies by ingesting videos “pseudo-labeled” with an inverse machine learning model.
It calls to mind a pair of models Facebook open-sourced last year — Talk the Walk — that can navigate the streets of New York City using only 360-degree images, natural language, and a map with local landmarks like banks and restaurants for guidance.
“Every morning, when you decide to get a cup of coffee from the kitchen, you think of going down the hallway, turning left into the corridor and then entering the room on the right. Instead of deciding the exact muscle torques, you plan at this higher level of abstraction by composing these reusable lower level visuomotor subroutines to reach your goal,” explained the coauthors. “These visuomotor subroutines … enable planning which mitigates the known issue of high computational cost in classical planning and high sample complexity in reinforcement learning.” In the first phase of their proposed two-phase system, the researchers generated pseudo-labels by running a model trained with an agent using self-supervision on random exploration data. (The pseudo-labels are actions imagined by the agent, in this context.) In total, the model learned from 1,500 different locations spread over four environments and executed actions randomly for 30 steps, producing 45,000 interaction samples.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In the system’s second phase, roughly 217,000 pseudo-labeled videos sliced into 2.2 million individual clips were fed into a model that predicted corresponding actions taken in the reference video, while a separate network examined the sequence of actions in the reference video and encoded the behavior as a vector (e.g., a mathematical representation). Yet another model predicted which learned subroutines could be invoked for any given video frame by anticipating the inferred encoding of the trajectory from the first frame.
In experiments with a real-world robot deployed in an office environment, the researchers showed that passive videos for learning skills (i.e., the most efficient way to travel to a target location) resulted in better performance than purely interactive methods, at least with respect to previously unseen environments. Perhaps most impressive of all, the trained models learned to favor forward navigation and to avoid obstacles up to four times faster in navigation tasks than the next best baseline, which enabled the above-mentioned robot to travel long distances completely autonomously.
“It is particularly striking that [the models] learned from a total of 45,000 interactions with the environment,” the researchers wrote. “Successful learning from first-person videos allowed the agent to execute coherent trajectories, even though it had only ever executed random actions … Furthermore, it outperforms state-of-the-art learning based techniques for learning skills, that were trained on multiple orders of magnitude more interaction sampled (45,000 versus 10 million).” 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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"DeepMind's AI can defeat human players in Quake III Arena's Capture the Flag mode | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepminds-ai-can-defeat-human-players-in-quake-iii-arenas-capture-the-flag-mode"
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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 DeepMind’s AI can defeat human players in Quake III Arena’s Capture the Flag mode 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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Few games are simpler in principle than capturing the flag (excepting perhaps tag or kick the can). Two teams each have a marker located at their respective bases, and the objective is to capture the other team’s marker and return it safely back to their base. Easy peasy.
What’s easily understood by humans is not quite so quickly grasped by machines, though. Where capture the flag is concerned in the video game domain, non-player characters have traditionally been programmed with heuristics and rules affording limited freedom in choice.
But AI and machine learning promise to turn this paradigm on its head. In a paper published this week in the journal Science roughly a year following the preprint , researchers at DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, describe a system capable not only of learning how to play capture the flag in Id Software’s Quake III Arena , but of devising entirely novel human-level team-based strategies.
“No one has told [the AI] how to play the game — only if they’ve beaten their opponent or not. The beauty of using [an] approach like this is that you never know what kind of behaviors will emerge as the agents learn,” said Max Jaderberg, a research scientist at DeepMind who recently worked on AlphaStar , a machine learning system that recently bested a human team of professionals at StarCraft II. He further explained that the key technique at play is reinforcement learning, which employs rewards to drive software policies toward goals — in the DeepMind agents’ case, whether their team won or not.
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! “From a research perspective, it’s the novelty of the algorithmic approach that’s really exciting,” he said. “The specific way we trained our [AI] … is a good example of how to scale up and operationalize some classic evolutionary ideas.” DeepMind’s cheekily-dubbed For The Win (FTW) agents learn directly from on-screen pixels using a convolutional neural network, a collection of mathematical functions (neurons) arranged in layers modeled after the visual cortex. The ingested data is passed onto two recurrent long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, or networks capable of learning long-term dependencies. One is on a fast timescale and the other operates on a slow timescale, and they’re coupled by a variational objective, a type of memory they jointly use to make predictions about the game world and output actions through an emulated game controller.
The FTW agents were trained in a population of 30 in total, which provided them with a range of teammates and opponents with which to play, and stages were selected randomly so as to prevent the agents from memorizing layouts. Each agent learned its own reward signal, enabling them to generate their own internal goals (like capturing the flag). They moreover leveraged a two-tier process to optimize their internal rewards and reinforcement learning on these rewards to suss out the overriding policies.
In all, agents individually played around 450,000 games of capture the flag, the equivalent of roughly four years of experience.
Above: A diagram illustrating the activations in DeepMind’s AI system.
“This is a really, really powerful learning paradigm,” said Wojciech Marian Czarnecki, a research scientist at DeepMind who also contributed to AlphaStar. “You’re actually boosting performance — it looks like the multiagent aspects are actually making our life much easier in terms of succeeding in our research.” The fully trained FTW agents, which run on commodity PC hardware, employed strategies generalizable across maps, team rosters, and team sizes. They learned humanlike behaviors such as following teammates, camping in the opponent’s base, and defending their own base from waves of attackers, and they shed less advantageous behaviors (like closely following teammates around the map) as training progressed.
So how’d the agents fare, ultimately? In a tournament involving 40 human players in which humans and agents were randomly matched in games (both as opponents and teammates), the FTW agents were more proficient than the baseline methods. In fact, they exceeded the win-rate of human players substantially, with an Elo rating (which corresponds to the probability of winning) of 1,600 compared with “strong” humans players’ 1,300 and average human players’ 1,050.
The agents had fast reaction times, unsurprisingly, which gave them a slight advantage in initial experiments. But even when their accuracy and reaction time was reduced through an inbuilt quarter-of-a-second (257-millisecond) delay, they still outperformed their human counterparts, with strong human players and intermediate players winning only 21% and 12% of the time, respectively.
Furthermore, when the researchers set the agents loose on other Quake III Arena game types following the paper’s publication, including professionally played maps and multiplayer modes with more gadgets and pickups (like Harvester on the Future Crossings map and One Flag Capture the Flag on the Ironwood map), the agents began to challenge the skills of human researchers in test matches. And when the researchers examined the activation patterns of the agents’ neural networks — i.e., the functions of neurons responsible for defining output data given input data — they found clusters representing rooms, the status of the flags, the visibility of teammates and opponents, the presence or absence of agents in the opponents’ base or team base, and other “meaningful aspects” of gameplay.
The trained agents even contained neurons that coded directly for particular situations, like when the agent’s flag is taken or when an agent’s teammate is holding a flag. “I think one of the things to note is that these ideas, these multiagent domains, are exceptionally powerful, and this paper shows us that,” said Jaderberg. “I think that’s what we’re learning better and better over the last couple of years — how to construct the problem of reinforcement learning. Reinforcement learning really shines in new situations.” Thore Graepel, a professor of computer science at London’s Global University and a scientist at DeepMind, says that the work highlights the potential of multiagent training to advance the development of AI. It might inform, for example, research in human-machine interaction and systems that complement one another or work together.
“Our results demonstrate that multiagent reinforcement learning can successfully tackle a complex game to the point that human players even think computer players are better teammates. They also provide a fascinating in-depth analysis of how the trained agents behave, work together, and represent their environment,” he said. “What makes these results so exciting is that these agents perceive their environment from a first-person perspective, just as a human player would. In order to learn how to play tactically and collaborate with their teammates, these agents must rely on feedback from the game outcomes — without any teacher or coach showing them what to do.” 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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"Glovo raises $168 million to expand its on-demand 'anything, anywhere' delivery platform | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/glovo-raises-168-million-to-expand-its-on-demand-anything-anywhere-delivery-platform"
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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 Glovo raises $168 million to expand its on-demand ‘anything, anywhere’ delivery platform Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Glovo courier 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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Glovo , an on-demand delivery startup headquartered in Barcelona, has raised €150 million ($168 million) in a series D round of funding led by Lakestar, with participation from Drake, Korelya, and Idinvest.
Founded in 2015, Glovo is one of a number of delivery logistics companies providing the infrastructure — including app and transport network — to connect shoppers with businesses. Through the platform, shoppers can order anything from groceries and electronics to restaurant meals and pharmaceutical goods, with one of Glovo’s couriers collecting and delivering orders in as little as 20 minutes.
The app can also be used to order things not specifically for sale inside the app — a shopper can request anything from any outlet and the courier will physically go and buy it from a shop on their behalf. And anyone can use the app to courier a package, for example, or to transport a set of keys between two locations.
“In only three years, they have built a significant, multi-country, next-generation, branded, last mile express delivery company,” said Lakestar partner Dharmash Mistry, who joins Glovo’s board of directors as a result of the firm’s investment. “The bold ambition to deliver ‘anything anywhere’ in less than 30 minutes will continue to change consumer behavior around food and grocery delivery, and much beyond.” Doubling up Above: Glovo cofounder and CEO Oscar Pierre The gargantuan round effectively doubles the amount of money the company has raised since its inception, and Glovo plans to use its fresh cash injection to grow its engineering team and expand its various on-demand services to become “the everything app for city living,” according to a statement.
“Glovo continues to scale rapidly, and we have big ambitions for this round of investment,” said Glovo cofounder and CEO Oscar Pierre. “Our main priority is to invest in our people — our team have been fundamental to our success to date, and as we grow we need an even bigger team of engineers to meet the demand we’re experiencing.” Glovo’s investment comes as San Francisco-based Postmates prepares for its impending IPO , having raised nearly $700 million. Though Postmates focuses more on food delivery, it is similar to Glovo in that it is open to delivering just about any product.
Glovo has long expanded beyond its Spanish roots, and it now operates across several European countries, in addition to a smattering of cities in Africa and the Americas.
Above: Where Glovo operates One the surface, it seems Glovo is intent on staying out of Postmates’ territory , though it hasn’t completely ruled out a U.S. launch in the future. “The U.S. market is not a focus for Glovo currently, but that’s not to say it won’t be in the future,” Pierre told VentureBeat. “Our priority is growth in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, where we’re scaling quickly and where there is a big opportunity for couriers, partners, and users.” Postmates, for its part, has given no indication that it intends to launch in any of Glovo’s existing markets anytime soon. So with another $168 million in the bank, Glovo can go about quietly expanding its presence in new markets without encroaching on Postmates’ lawn.
“Our aim is to lead in every market we enter and provide an on-demand experience that delivers for our customers, Glovers [couriers], and partners,” Pierre added. “We believe innovations such as dark supermarkets , as well as our appetite to innovate to provide everything through one app for city dwellers, give us a significant competitive advantage in the market for the year ahead.” 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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"WhatsApp gains Product Catalogs and Account Kit support | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/whatsapp-gains-product-catalogs-and-account-kit-support"
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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 WhatsApp gains Product Catalogs and Account Kit 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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Today at Facebook’s annual F8 developer summit, the company gave an update on WhatsApp, the messaging platform it acquired for $19 billion in February 2014. Specifically, it said that WhatsApp — which had 1.5 billion users in 180 countries as of late last year, making it the most popular instant messaging app worldwide, above second-place Facebook Messenger with 1.3 billion users — will gain a pair of features focused on security and commerce.
Facebook took the wraps off of Product Catalog, which will allow users to see what’s available from businesses participating in WhatsApp Business when the feature rolls out later this year. “This is going to be especially important for all of the small businesses out there that don’t have a web presence, and that are increasingly using private social platforms is their main way of interacting with their customers,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg onstage.
The standalone WhatsApp Business app was first made available in January 2018. In April of that year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported that WhatsApp Business had more than 3 million users.
Facebook also announced that it’s releasing a software development kit to integrate WhatsApp verification into Account Kit — Facebook’s tool that lets people quickly register for and log into apps by using their phone number or email address — for iOS and Android. App developers can give users the option to use WhatsApp to send verification codes as an alternative to SMS for phone number login, and even choose to disable SMS verification.
It’s been available on WhatsApp’s web SDK since last year.
In other news, Portal owners can now make encrypted calls through WhatsApp on Portal , Facebook’s smart display. And peer-to-peer payments, which launched in India earlier this year for “millions” of users, will come to other countries in the coming months, Zuckerberg announced.
Facebook has shown WhatsApp lots of love this year, with new functionality rolling out on the regular.
Last August saw the launch of the Business API, which allows organizations to manage and send non-promotional handcrafted and automated messages to customers — like appointment reminders, shipping info, or event tickets — for a fixed rate. (Uber, Booking.com , and KLM Airlines were among the first 90 customers.) Click-to-WhatsApp ads debuted alongside it; they add buttons to advertisements that invite people to chat on WhatsApp groups.
In April, WhatsApp gained new options that allow users to control who can add them to groups and to invite users to rooms with links that expire after 72 hours. At the time, Facebook executives said they were in part an effort to prevent toxic political organizations from adding people to as many groups as possible to propagate their messages. (Groups can have up to 256 people in them.) Last February, WhatsApp took steps to tackle misinformation ahead of national elections in India, one of Facebook’s largest markets with over 200 million users. The app has been blamed for inciting violence that cost dozens of lives and contributing to ethnic violence in Myanmar , and for spreading hateful and racist messages about prominent political figures.
WhatsApp is now actively banning about two million accounts on its platform each month using machine learning (20% at the time of registration), 75% of which are handled without human intervention or a report filed by a user. Separately, it recently enforced a limit on the number of texts that can be forwarded to other users and partnered with fact checkers Boom Live and Alt News, as well as news consortium Ekta.
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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"Instagram tests making Like counts private in Canada | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/instagram-tests-making-like-counts-private-in-canada"
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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 Instagram tests making Like counts private in Canada Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Instagram Cake 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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Earlier this month, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong uncovered evidence that Instagram was experimenting with concealed Like counts in posts, which a company spokesperson told TechCrunch it wasn’t considering. That is poised to change. During a keynote at Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that Instagram will later this week begin a test in Canada that involves removing the total number of Likes on photos and video views in the Instagram Feed, Permalink pages, and Profiles.
The idea, Instagram says, is to encourage followers to “focus on the photos and videos [shared]” rather than the number of likes they get. “During this test, only the person who shared a post will see the total number of likes,” the company added.
It’s not a new direction for Instagram. Cofounder Kevin Systrom, who left Facebook in October, told TechCrunch that getting away from the pressure of Like counts was one impetus for launching Instagram Stories — but the timing of the test is conspicuous. There’s growing concern about the impact of Like counts on mental health, with Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey going so far as to say in a recent interview that the company would consider app designs that de-emphasize follower and Like counts.
Above: Private Like counts in Instagram.
In April, a report from the British Information Commissioner’s Office, the independent regulatory body dealing with data protection and digital privacy across the U.K., suggested that Likes and other mechanisms that nudge young users (those under the age of 18) into engaging with apps should be switched off by default, or even banned entirely.
When it comes to determining whether Likes themselves are psychologically harmful, the literature is inconclusive. A survey of 300 adults that examined the correlation between Facebook Likes, self-esteem, and “sense of purpose” found no statistical link between Likes and self-esteem in respondents who reported a great sense of purpose in life. However, those who said they lacked purpose felt better when they received more Facebook Likes. Authors of a separate study report that in teenagers the same brain circuits activated by eating chocolate and winning money light up when they see large numbers of Likes on their own photos or the photos of peers in a social network.
It’s unclear whether Instagram will roll out the hidden Likes test to other markets anytime soon, if ever. But if it does choose to de-emphasize Likes at some point, the move could be a first step in repairing our fraught relationship with social media.
In related announcements, Mosseri previewed features designed to tamp down on cyberbullying and abusive comments. One — a comment filter — “nudges” users to rethink comments that might be perceived as aggressive or offensive. Another — tentatively called Away Mode — lets followers and posters opt out of Instagram “when they’re in a sensitive moment,” like when they’ve switched high schools or gone through a breakup. A third — “manage interactions” — will allow users to set limits on interactions that fall short of blocking, like preventing someone from commenting on posts but letting them favorite them.
Mosseri cautioned that the features might never roll out broadly, but characterized them as a step toward Instagram’s goal of “leading the fight against online bullying.
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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"Facebook redesigns its web and mobile apps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-redesigns-its-web-and-mobile-apps"
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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 redesigns its web and mobile apps 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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Today at Facebook’s annual F8 developer summit in San Francisco, the company launched a redesign of its mobile and web apps — code-named FB5 — built around “private interactions” and “community.” And for the first time in years, it updated its logo.
Every user in the U.S. will gain access to the refreshed clients soon, with users in other regions to follow in the coming months. The redesign on mobile has been happening in stages, Facebook says, while the desktop redesign will begin testing in the next few months.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg called it “the biggest change to the app and website in the last five years.” The massive revamp — the “sum of hundreds of details” rather than just a few major changes, according to Zuckerberg — makes it easier to find and connect to relevant Facebook Groups with streamlined suggestions, browse, and discovery tools. It features clean lines and ample white space, and lets users post to any of the social network’s tens of millions of active Groups directly from the homepage. Moreover, it prominently features Groups in the left-hand sidebar on desktop.
Above: The new Facebook on desktop.
There’s a new Meet New Friends feature that lets folks reach out to strangers from Groups they’re a part of or with whom they share interests, and on Marketplace — Facebook’s peer-to-peer shopping hub — users can make payments and handle shipping directly through the social network. (Facebook says it’s exploring ways to let buyers ask questions and place orders of Facebook Live streamers without leaving the live broadcast.) Also new: a local Events tab that shows what’s nearby, including businesses and Groups.
Elsewhere, within job-seeking Groups, there are new templates for job ads. Gaming Groups gained a chat feature that lets members create subthreads for topics they have in mind. And members of Health Support Groups can now ask admins to “post on their behalf in order to protect their privacy around sensitive topics.” “You’re … going to be able to see and connect with groups that you care about,” said Zuckerberg, “and it all adds up to this feeling that Groups are now at the heart of the experience, just as much as your friends and family. Now … you’re going to be able to see and connect with your friends [everywhere].” Above: The new Facebook app on mobile.
Facebook also announced today that Facebook Dating , its eponymous dating service, is opening in 14 more countries: Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, and Suriname. That brings the total country count to 19, and it should launch in the U.S. before the end of the year.
Alongside the geographic expansion, Facebook’s rolling out Secret Crush, a feature that connects up to nine strangers and friends-of-friends. If they’ve opted into Facebook Dating, they’ll get a notification from which they can optionally start a chat on Messenger.
“It’s no surprise that the fastest way we’re all communicating online [is through] private messaging in small groups, and through Stories,” added Zuckerberg. “So that’s why I believe that the future is private. As the world gets bigger and more connected, we need that sense of intimacy more than ever.” 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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"Facebook cares about privacy, for realsies, Zuckerberg swears | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-cares-about-privacy-for-realsies-zuckerberg-swears"
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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 cares about privacy, for realsies, Zuckerberg swears 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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“I know that we don’t exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly,” said Mark Zuckerberg from the F8 2019 stage. He was attempting levity, but the joke didn’t land, because it was true but not funny. However, the new and improved Facebook — the company and the site and the associated apps under the Facebook umbrella — are now all about privacy. Zuckerberg swears.
The opening few minutes from Zuckerberg’s keynote on the F8 stage were essentially a rehash of his March blog post in which he espoused his “privacy-focused vision for social networking.” The new Big Idea is that whereas in the past we consumers have thrived on a digital town square, increasingly we crave a digital living room. And that new, smaller, more intimate, more privacy-focused space is driven more by messaging than by Facebook Pages or the News Feed.
The digital living room and six core principles In the blog post, and from the F8 stage, Zuckerberg listed six core principles around which the company will build this new privacy-focused social network. They are: Private interactions Encryption Reducing permanence Safety Interoperability Secure data storage They all sound great. End-to-end message encryption is a must have, to protect data from even Facebook’s prying eyes; the temporary nature of messages gives people more confidence that encrypted transmissions can’t be hacked later on; and so on. But much of this seems to merely describe what’s already present in WhatsApp.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Many of the early F8 announcements had to do with feature improvements to Facebook’s roster of messaging applications, like a completely rebuilt Facebook Messenger app that has a desktop app and the ability to watch the same video at the same time with a friend. There’s increased interoperability between Messenger and WhatsApp, too, with new features that will let you make calls and send messages seamlessly across them all. Messenger and Instagram are set to enjoy the same end-to-end encryption as WhatsApp.
The company is also now keener than ever on features like Groups, where Facebook users can gather into “meaningful communities.” Simply, Groups give people more private spaces within Facebook where they can engage more freely without worrying about trolls and the like. “Privacy” is sprinkled throughout Facebook’s other announcements, too, like how Portal lets you share and send private photos and video messages or a new Instagram feature that shows you who liked something, but not a numerical tally.
Where the winds are blowing Despite the recent announcements, it’s not a stretch to posit that Facebook doesn’t care about privacy in the way consumers do, nor for the reasons that consumers want it. There’s virtually nothing in the company’s history that indicates anything but lip service to the issue, but there is a litany of missteps and bad moves that show the opposite.
It’s aggravating, but it shouldn’t be surprising. Facebook was arguably built specifically for not-privacy, with a business model that vacuumed and acted on data that users created all day, every day, across the globe.
What’s changed is how people are using Facebook and its associated services. According to Facebook, 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp, and late last year Zuckerberg stated in an earnings call that “On average, more than 2 billion people use at least one of our services every day.” That includes all of the company’s messaging apps. Anecdotally, teenagers seem to be using messaging apps with fervor while eschewing Facebook itself.
So then, this renewed focus on privacy, as Zuckerberg himself describes it, looks less like Facebook has developed a conscience about how it views privacy and data handling and more like the company is sagely seeing user trends, and adapting to them in order to continue running a successful business. That’s a cynical take, but looked at another way, it shows how powerful consumers can be. People are shifting away from the digital town square to the digital living room to have more private and intimate online relationships and communications, forcing Facebook to provide features that enhance those experiences. The net result appears to be more privacy features.
In that sense, now when Zuckerberg says, “We need both private and public spaces” and “Privacy gives us the freedom to be ourselves” and “The future is private,” we can perhaps take him at his word. For real this time.
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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"Samsung blames user after Galaxy S10 5G melts down | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/samsung-blames-user-after-galaxy-s10-5g-melts-down"
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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 Samsung blames user after Galaxy S10 5G melts down Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Samsung Galaxy S10 5G was ruined by internal burning, but the owner and Samsung disagree as to the cause.
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Complaints about shaky data service might wind up being the tip of the iceberg for Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S10 5G , as the company is now combating a South Korean customer’s claim that his six-day-old phone caught on fire “without reasons.” According to the AFP (via Economic Times), the manufacturer is blaming an “external impact” for the damage, which appears to have burned the device from the inside out, leaving it inoperable.
The Galaxy S10 5G is the world’s first fully integrated 5G smartphone, officially hitting South Korean stores via three carriers on April 5.
It’s currently scheduled to arrive in the U.S.
on May 16 via Verizon before becoming available from other carriers.
Photos of the device from the user, identified only by the surname Lee, show comprehensive damage to the front, rear, and sides of the new phone ranging from cracked glass to melted plastic and metal. Lee claims that the S10 5G was sitting on a table when it “started smelling burnt and smoke soon engulfed the phone,” and that he dropped the device because it was so hot. When he reached out to Samsung, the company refused to replace or refund the $1,200 purchase, suggesting that he was at fault.
“We got the product and completed the external inspection and X-ray inspection,” Samsung said in a statement , “but the external traces are obvious. We can’t find the product defects. It may be caused by the external impact on the smartphone.” While the cause of this issue remains unclear, Samsung doesn’t have a sterling track record with cutting-edge smartphones. Two and a half years ago, exploding batteries caused the company to kill the Galaxy Note7 , and last week, the company delayed its flexible Galaxy Fold due to screen hinge issues discovered by reviewers only days before units were to hit stores. The company has denied responsibility for Galaxy S10 5G cellular connectivity issues that South Korean users previously reported.
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"IDC: Smartphone shipments declined 6.6% in Q1 2019, Huawei overtakes Apple again | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/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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"Apple reports $58 billion in Q2 2019 revenue, services hit $11.5 billion | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-reports-q2-2019-revenue"
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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 $58 billion in Q2 2019 revenue, services hit $11.5 billion Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn iPhones now constitute the majority of Apple's annual revenues, surpassing unit sales of Macs by around eight times.
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Following its unexpectedly disappointing fiscal first quarter results , Apple today reported second-quarter 2019 revenues of $58 billion, a 5% year-over-year decline, offset by record high services revenue of $11.5 billion. The total number was slightly above analysts’ consensus estimates of $57.4 billion, and in the middle of Apple’s $55 to $59 billion guidance range.
During the quarter, Apple says, it sold $31.05 billion in iPhones, $5.5 billion in Macs, $4.87 billion in iPads, and nearly $5.13 billion in combined wearables and accessories. The iPhone and Mac numbers are both down from the comparable second quarter of 2018 despite atypically aggressive marketing efforts, but the iPad and wearable/accessory categories both showed marked dollar value growth over the year-ago quarter. Unfortunately, the company no longer provides unit sales for its product lines.
International results were mixed. While net sales were up slightly year-over-year in the Americas and Japan, they were down in Europe, China, and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. In total, international sales accounted for 61% of the company’s quarterly revenue.
The $58 billion total figure fell from the $61.1 billion Apple took in during the year ago quarter, making this the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines for the huge and previously growing company. Apple CEO Tim Cook notes, however, that services revenue was up sharply — around 16% from a year ago — and that the iPad experienced its strongest growth in six years.
Our March quarter results show the continued strength of our installed base of over 1.4 billion active devices, as we set an all-time record for Services, and the strong momentum of our Wearables, Home and Accessories category, which set a new March quarter record. We delivered our strongest iPad growth in six years, and we are as excited as ever about our pipeline of innovative hardware, software and services. We’re looking forward to sharing more with developers and customers at Apple’s 30th annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple notably slashed its fiscal first quarter 2019 earnings forecast in January before announcing holiday quarter revenues of $84.3 billion , down from $88.3 billion one year before. At the time, the company attributed the downturn to expected sales shortfalls in China, unfavorable exchange rates — primarily in developing countries — and longer iPhone replacement cycles, which it suggested were extended by a battery replacement program.
Certain iPhone models saw multiple targeted price drops before across-the-board reductions based partially on lower Chinese tax rates.
Today, Apple is guiding third-quarter 2019 revenue between $52.5 billion and $54.5 billion, which would be roughly flat compared with last year’s third quarter, without any change to its typical 37-38% gross margin. To reward potentially concerned investors, the company is upping its dividend by 5% to 77 cents per share of stock, and is announcing a $75 billion share repurchase program. Further details on the results will be forthcoming in a quarterly earnings call, which we’ll be covering live.
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"Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings call: iPad, Wearables, and Services are solid | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-q2-2019-earnings-call"
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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 Q2 2019 earnings call: iPad, Wearables, and Services are solid Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Tim Cook at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2018 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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After releasing second-quarter 2019 financial results today, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are hosting their quarterly live question-and-answer session for financial analysts. We are covering the session live, with updates below in chronological order as the call proceeds.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated frequently. Please refresh for additional details.
Today’s Q&A comes after Apple disclosed a second consecutive quarterly decline in sales, including modest dips in iPhone and Mac revenue offset by stronger Services revenue, iPad sales, and Wearable/Accessory sales. Cook said sales were weaker in developing countries than developed ones, yet suggested they were turning up compared with the prior quarter.
While overall revenues were down by 5% from last year’s quarter, Cook focused largely on a collection of positives, noting that the company now has 390 million active subscriptions fueling its Services business, which will continue to grow due to the services Apple previewed at its March special event: Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, and the Apple Card, which collectively build upon the existing successes of Apple’s app, iTunes, and retail stores.
Cook said that the Mac business was held back by processor constraints, which reduced sales by 5% from the forecast — an issue he doesn’t believe will continue to be a problem. iPad sales were improved by the release of iPad Air and iPad mini models with A12 Bionic chips and Apple Pencil support.
The latest AirPods , he said, have had “incredible” sales and become a “cultural phenomenon.” He also suggested that sales in Apple’s retail stores have been improved by trade-ins , with more than 4 times the trade-in activity of a year ago.
Maestri drilled down on the company’s results, suggesting negative foreign exchange issues because of a strong U.S. dollar, and said the gross margin was 37.6%, with products at 31.2% and services at 63.8% — enabling Services to account for 20% of all gross revenue and one-third of profits. He also noted that the company’s loyalty is buoyed by 99% customer satisfaction across the iPhone XR and XS lineup.
Subscriptions, he said, are growing strongly around the world. Paid subscriptions went up 40% across each geographic segment over the last year, and the company expects the numbers to continue to go up over the next year.
iPad revenue grew everywhere, even including China, and the tablet had its best quarter ever in Japan. Revenue growth has resulted from strong customer response to the iPad Pro, and the iPad family has a 93% customer satisfaction rate overall. Wearables grew almost 50% year-over-year, with the Apple Watch having its best results ever in a non-holiday quarter and AirPods demand continuing to outpace supply.
Q&A with Tim Cook and Luca Maestri What are you seeing in China? Things look to be improving sequentially Cook: We’re seeing in the iPhone space a better year-over-year performance in the last weeks of the quarter compared with the full quarter, or November-December. We made price adjustments backing out the weaker currency effect and then some; there are stimulus programs introduced by the government. Our trade-in and financing programs have been well received there, and there’s an improved trade dialogue between the U.S. and China, improving consumer confidence.
What’s the story with the Qualcomm settlement? Anything to say on 5G? Cook: We’re glad to put the litigation behind us and very happy to have a multi-year supply agreement, as well as a license arrangement with Qualcomm. We feel good about the resolution.
Any adjustments in India? What’s the situation with investing in Services? Cook: We’ve made some adjustments in India, and we try to learn the best we can from prior experiences — we’ll do that with this as well.
Maestri: We’ll do what we need to do in terms of increasing service investments to make these services successful, as they’re clearly capable of improving our bottom line.
What more can you say on 5G, or adopting new technologies in general? Cook: I’m going to largely punt on this. We look at a lot of things on different technologies and try to select the right time that things come together and get those into products as soon as we can. From a cost point of view, the technology had cost pressure over the last couple of years or so. But in the commodity market, DRAM and NAND are going in the other direction. It’s the aggregate of all of it that really matters from a price point of view.
What have you learned about pricing elasticity? Cook: I was talking about China specifically in opening remarks, and how things turned up after price reductions and other factors, such as trade-in/financing programs. What we’ve learned is that many people really do want to trade in current phones, and from a customer standpoint it looks like a subsidy and is a way to offset device cost itself. In literally every market we’ve tried this in, there’s a reasonable number of people who want to pay on installments rather than all at once. We’re learning quickly on this.
Stimulus programs in China are having an effect on the consumer, and VAT reduction from 16% to 13% was aggressive; the improved trade dialogue improves consumer confidence.
Maestri: Any time we do a price reduction it dilutes gross margin, but we look at the total amount that comes in, and think that it’s positive.
What types of devices are being traded in? Cook: All over the place — 6 models, some 7 models, fewer 8 models, but there are some of each of those. Some customers are on 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-year cycles. We’re currently offering trade-in values that are more than the “blue book” of the device, if you will, and have topped those up to provide an extra benefit to the user. Installments are different in each geography, but China is doing the best with installments, with a unique offering there that further helps. We’re trying to teach consumers that there’s money and an environmental benefit to trading in.
How does Qualcomm impact earnings? Maestri: We’re not sharing the financial terms, as part of the settlement. But our gross margin guidance fully comprehends the outcome of the agreement with Qualcomm.
Are there further new services coming after those already announced? Cook: We’re always working on new things, but currently focused on getting these four (News/TV/Card/Arcade) out there.
Which of the services has the most potential to help the Services line in the next 12 months, then over the long term? Cook: We’re taking consumer interest in the Apple Card, and there’s significant interest on that. Gaming is the top category in the App Store, so Apple Arcade will serve some of that market. TV+ plays in a market where there’s a huge move from cable bundle to over-the-top service, and we think most users will get multiple OTT products. We’ll do our best to get them to include TV+. And we want to get customers to give News+ a look, as I love magazines and really want to support publishers. We’re at the very beginning of the ramp there — these aren’t hobbies, we’re only entering markets where we think we can do well.
What about India, given that Android is so entrenched? Cook: India is a very important market in the long term but challenging in the short term. We’ve started manufacturing there, which is important to being able to serve the market in a reasonable way, and would like to place retail stores there — we’re working with the government to seek approval to do that. We’re planning to go in with all of our might. It’s a long-term play and won’t be a huge business overnight, but I think the growth potential is phenomenal. It doesn’t bother me that it’s primarily an Android business at the moment because I just think that means there’s opportunity there.
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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"Oculus Quest interview -- Standalone VR built for value-conscious gamers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/oculus-quest-interview-standalone-vr-built-for-value-conscious-gamers"
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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 Oculus Quest interview — Standalone VR built for value-conscious gamers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Oculus Quest sits behind the Touch controllers.
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Since its announcement last year, Oculus Quest has been touted as the next evolution of VR — a completely standalone, tetherless device with the ability to play nearly PC-caliber VR games and “experiences.” Now that it has an official release date (May 21) and pricing for both 64GB ($399) and 128GB ($499) models, we wanted to talk with Oculus about where Quest stands in the VR marketplace and whether its initial lineup of software will be enough to hook a critical mass of early adopters.
With today’s official announcement only hours away, we spoke with Oculus’ director of content ecosystem, Chris Pruett, who leads Quest’s third-party development initiatives. Pruett provided a clear picture of what potential Quest customers should expect in terms of power, positioning, and software value for the dollar.
Here’s a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
VentureBeat: Tell us a little about your responsibilities at Oculus.
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! Chris Pruett: I work on third-party content. My group is in charge of supporting our developers across all of our devices to build an ecosystem that can produce great content for our users, and sustainable business revenue for that. So I have business groups, engineering groups, folks that are working on everything from documentation all the way down to engineers that are sitting with our top developers hacking on their code to make sure that what they’ve got is really good. My job is to make sure that the content that ships on our platform is as high-quality as possible.
VentureBeat: For Quest, that could be an especially challenging process because you’re trying to take PC games and bring them down to a mobile chipset, which sets some interesting expectations for consumers while challenging developers trying to port stuff down, right? Pruett: Yeah, if you look at our launch lineup, you’ll see that there’s a bunch of stuff that we’ve brought over from Rift … The challenges I think you’re alluding to with performance and content have turned out to be — for some applications — not really the biggest challenge. Most of the work that my engineering team is doing is to help educate developers who are primarily used to PC development platforms as to what Quest looks like.
We made a lot of modifications to the Quest hardware itself. In particular, we’re running this [ Snapdragon 835 ] chipset at a much higher clock rate for much longer sustained periods than you will probably see in any other devices with the same chipset. So we’re able to actually get quite a bit of performance out of this hardware, and most of the work is not actually code optimization — it’s art asset formatting, to make sure that the stuff we’re showing on the device is built with that GPU in mind.
In a lot of cases, we’re using the exact same assets that you see on Rift, but they’ve been formatted differently in order to make sure that they’re fast on this hardware … When we get down to a standalone form factor, we need to make sure that the assets that you’re actually pushing through the graphics pipe are exactly in the format they need to be in, exactly the assets you need to draw that frame; we need to get real crisp on what we’re giving to the GPU. But we don’t actually need to reduce the complexity of the assets in many circumstances.
VentureBeat: Does Quest support foveated rendering , the center-of-frame detail optimizing feature found in Oculus Go? Pruett: Yes, we have the same technology on Quest. The execution of it is extremely similar; it is a particular optimization that helps us for applications that are fill-bound, where their slowest part of the rendering pipeline is actually filling in the pixels … so yes, it is essentially the same technology as we use in Go.
Above: Foveated rendering lets one part of the screen have higher detail than the rest, saving GPU resources.
VentureBeat: It looks like Quest is being positioned almost exclusively as a VR gaming platform, as distinguished from competing all-in-one VR headsets that are either for more passive activities like VR video viewing (Oculus Go), or enterprise applications (Vive Focus).
Pruett: Yeah, I think that’s about right. I will [add a] caveat and say we have a lot of stuff — and we have announced some of it already — that isn’t games, but is coming to this platform: Tilt Brush, National Geographic, and VR Chat. There continues to be an important segment of things that are really high-quality, non-game applications, and we’re absolutely interested in those for Quest. But if you look at the market, we are absolutely focused on games as the primary use case. And the reasoning for that is pretty straightforward. Our goal with Quest is to drive VR adoption; we would like to put as many of these out in the world as we possibly can. And when we look at the things that our customers respond to most strongly, and we ask them what it is that they want to do in VR, video games are the top of the pile.
VentureBeat: So things such as social VR, watching videos, and other experiences, such as Vader Immortal and National Geographic Explore, that aren’t quite games but aren’t movies or books , either — h ow much of a focus has that been for Facebook? Pruett: Social is not an orthogonal track to games. I think it is a feature that crosses both games and non-game things. So for example, we are looking at a lot of games that include multiplayer, like Dead & Buried 2, which is a version of social. There’s also all kinds of other social stuff in the works that may or may not land in a “gaming” package. But the idea that you want to do something with other people is an extremely strong core undercurrent of all of our theories about VR. You can see it even in the way we’re announcing beta support for Casting, which is the ability to take what you’re seeing in a headset and push it off to another surface, like your TV or your phone.
The main use case for that is a social experience where people are in the same room as you — you have one person in the headset and other people outside the headset who would like to see what the person in the headset is seeing. We found it’s an extremely common use case. And it’s not a common way we talk about social, but it’s a type of social interaction that happens in VR that we want to support.
We remain pretty committed to the types of experiences and applications that have done well for us in the past. So you mentioned video; video does extremely well for us on Oculus Go. We understand people like to consume video, so that’s not something that we want to shut down with Quest. So you will see a lot of video offerings on Quest. But we think that the reason that you want to go out and buy this device is that it is a fantastic room-scale 6DoF-tracked game device with hands. So the focus of our positioning of this in the market is really going to focus in on that gaming use case.
Above: Dead & Buried 2 with the Oculus Quest in a very big arena.
VentureBeat: Have you actively sought out “experience” developers or were they existing Rift partners who saw Quest as having greater potential? [Are you] hunting out developers for apps like that? Or is it just developers who are coming to you and saying, “Listen, we’ve got a National Geographic idea that we’d like to put on here”? Pruett: Yeah, we absolutely do. We have a whole team here of folks that are working on our content catalog, and a number of them roll up into my group as third-party content, and we’re looking for all kinds of stuff. That includes talking to a lot of game companies but also includes talking to folks like National Geographic and a whole collection of things that we’re calling “experiences.” Vader Immortal is an experience and, you know, National Geographic and VR Chat are not games. We don’t have great words for these things yet, because a lot of them are sort of a new format of entertainment that doesn’t have an analog to an existing format outside of VR. But we see them as super interesting and actually quite critical to success of our platform.
I would say the theme of our Quest content strategy is depth of content. I joined Oculus almost five years ago, and there have been periods in our history where an interesting five-minute experience was worth putting out there in front of folks and checking out because it was new and fresh and interesting. With Quest, we’re looking for more than that, we’re looking for things that actually have depth and longevity and some subtlety to them. But there’s a sort of overall quality of content, whether we’re talking about a game or an experience that we’re going to require for Quest titles.
Above: National Geographic Explorer VR.
VentureBeat: From what I’ve heard about National Geographic Explorer, it’s around 30 minutes of experience between two environments. If that’s correct, that doesn’t seem like a lot to be getting from a 2019 game-slash-entertainment download. Is that time estimate wrong, or is 30 minutes the minimally acceptable threshold for publishing at this point? Pruett: What we’re looking for is something that is interesting to the customers at the price point that it’s at. The point that I wanted to make is that these aren’t tech demos, even if they are relatively short-form. I’m not speaking directly to National Geographic, because I actually don’t know the total length of National Geographic, and I expect that the experiences that they’ve shown are just some of what they have in store. But the way that we think about this is not in terms of just length. As an extreme, I can imagine a 100-hour RPG game that has extremely simple graphics and almost no real depth, other than a very large world. That also is maybe not what you’re looking for. So it’s not like we say “Well, it must be two hours or more.” It really depends on what the thing is.
VentureBeat: When a developer partners with Oculus to bring a game to Quest, what are the up front and per unit financial incentives, given that it’s a brand new platform? Pruett: We don’t, as a matter of policy, discuss the specific deals that we do with developers. But I will tell you that if you come and work on Quest and you become a managed developer — you are in our developer program, you’re developing for Quest — what you get access to is basically this team of super pros to support your development. We have engineering teams who will literally get on a plane and go to a developer’s office and sit with them and hack on their code if that’s what it takes to get their software up to performance or get it across the line for shipping. We have business folks who will sit and work on your marketing assets with you. They will help you figure out what the best time for your release is, so you can maximize the impact of your launch.
These aren’t new; we have been offering these services to our managed developers for years, but coming to work with us — we’re dramatically invested in the success of the developers that we work with, and we have quite a lot of resources that we put behind them.
VentureBeat: Historically, the $399 price point has been challenging for any game console — mass-market sales tend to start at $299 or $199. Is the goal to make Quest as mainstream for VR as Nintendo’s Switch is for portables, or are you chasing a smaller niche? Pruett: I remember when the PlayStation 3 launched at $599 … VentureBeat: Well, yeah, it was a huge flop at that price … Pruett: Well, but over its history it did very well. I don’t think most consoles launch at $299, although I get your point about it being a very sweet price point for inflection. I think that we are talking to gamers who understand the value that they expect for their money. So what we’re offering to them is a standalone, extremely high-quality, 6DoF hand-tracked VR device they can use in the home without a PC, without requiring any of the dependencies. When they put that thing on, the content they see needs to meet their expectations, in terms of value that includes both length and price, and all of those variables. And I think that what we’re going to offer them is going to meet all those expectations.
National Geographic is not a game. And it’s like I said, it is an experience that doesn’t have strong analog to other entertainment devices. So “How long should that be and what exactly should that cost?” is a super interesting question, and I think developers are still in the process of exploring it.
But when it comes to games, there’s a massive amount of precedent. We understand what Superhot costs. We understand what Beat Saber costs. The value proposition for game content, in particular, is quite clear. So I think that you should expect that same proposition to hold on Oculus Quest, except that we can do it in a better form factor than you’ve had before. We can do it in a way that opens you up to tetherless, room-scale tracking, and we’ve got all these other things that can dramatically inflect the actual quality experience. I would expect our consumers to show up with expectations set on other platforms and be very satisfied.
Above: Superhot VR.
VentureBeat: Are you going to price software like a port of a year-old title on PC or console, like day one console pricing, or the price that it’s at right now on another platform? Nintendo’s philosophy with the Switch has generally been to take an old game from another platform, then price it at the same price as it originally came out at. It’s one thing if you’re Nintendo, but for everyone else, it might not be so easy.
Pruett: I don’t think that we have discussed price points of any of the things that we are developing ourselves. But I will say that I’m quite confident that those who buy this platform understand what content is worth and what the average value of stuff is and will be happy with what we have to offer.
Part of our goal is to grow VR adoption, which means finding folks who’ve never purchased a VR headset before. And in particular for those people — like to you and me, Superhot might be a two-year old game — but to someone who has never played before, it’s one of the best things you can do in VR.
VentureBeat’s full review of Oculus Quest is available here.
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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"Examity raises $90 million for online proctoring platform that thwarts exam cheats | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/examity-raises-90-million-for-online-proctoring-platform-that-thwarts-exam-cheats"
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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 Examity raises $90 million for online proctoring platform that thwarts exam cheats Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Examity homepage 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.
Examity , a platform that serves online course providers with proctoring services to authenticate the identity of students and ensure they don’t cheat, has raised $90 million in a round of funding from Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners.
The online education industry is expected to grow from a $4 billion market today to $21 billion by 2023. That’s why massive open online courses (MOOCs) have attracted significant investment, with Coursera last week announcing a $103 million funding round.
But supervising tests online is inherently trickier than in brick-and-mortar exam halls, which is why Examity has been working to help remote proctors since its inception in 2013.
“As college cheating scandals continue to make headlines, institutions are turning to technology to validate the learning experience and ensure confidence in student outcomes,” said Examity founder and CEO Michael London.
Authenticate The Newton, Massachusetts-based startup offers a handful of services to ensure the person being tested is who they say they are and that they follow the rules for the duration of the test. The first step is to verify the individual’s ID before the test starts, which requires test-takers to create an Examity profile (if they haven’t done so already) and upload a copy of their government ID.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Different exams will require different levels of verification, which is why Examity gives its clients a range of options — including automated ID verification, which uses “proprietary technology coupled with other factors” to validate the student’s identity.
Examity also offers mobile ID verification, which employs biometric authentication — including fingerprint, face, and voice recognition — to validate the test-taker’s ID. And then there is live authentication, which relies on a real person to confirm the student’s identity and run through the exam rules while inspecting their test environment.
Post-verification, Examity offers its customers the option of live or automated proctoring, with the latter using what Examity calls “proprietary machine learning algorithms” to detect unusual behavior, using data captured from screenshots, audio files, and video.
Examity had previously raised around $30 million, and with another $90 million in the bank it plans to expand the scope of its coverage across universities, employers, and certification providers to ensure all exams are administered with integrity.
The company claims that more than 500 colleges and employers use its services to administer remote exams, including a number of traditional educational institutions, such as Penn State University, Texas A&M University, and Indiana University. It expects to proctor more than 2 million such exams this year, and it also works with established online education platforms, including Duolingo and Coursera, as well as private companies such as Amazon.
According to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, around a third of all college students take at least one course online. And with the corporate elearning market expected to grow from a roughly $20 billion business today to $30 billion by 2022, the need for remote proctoring technology will only grow.
“As online learning becomes ubiquitous in not just the classroom but also the workplace, universities and employers are increasingly emphasizing the security and integrity of the test-taking experience,” said Chris Busby, a partner at Great Hill Partners.
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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"Cryptocurrency thefts, scams, and fraud top $1.2 billion in Q1 2019 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/cryptocurrency-thefts-scams-and-fraud-top-1-2-billion-in-q1"
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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 Cryptocurrency thefts, scams, and fraud top $1.2 billion in Q1 2019 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn CipherTrace says crypto scams surpassed $1.2 billion in Q1 2019.
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Cryptocurrency thefts, scams, and fraud seem like they’re subsiding as the technology goes mainstream, right? Wrong. Crypto criminals and fraudsters stole more than $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2019, according to a report by cryptocurrency security firm CipherTrace.
It’s no wonder a “tsunami of global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terror financing (CTF) regulations” is scheduled to take effect this year.
CipherTrace develops cryptocurrency anti-money laundering, cryptocurrency forensics, blockchain threat intelligence and regulatory monitoring solutions for exchanges, banks, investigators, regulators, and digital asset businesses. The company was founded in 2015 and has backing from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In light of the controversy surrounding the missing $850 million in the Bitfinex and Tether case, CipherTrace has looked into the risks related to “ stable coins ,” those designed to be backed by a stable currency that should theoretically moderate price fluctuations.
The report found that criminals stole more than $356 million in cryptocurrency from exchanges and infrastructure during the first quarter of 2019.
Among these losses, exit scams — where founders of crypto companies make off with the money — robbed cryptocurrency users of nearly $195 million.
Above: CipherTrace is tracking a lot of new crypto regulations.
Cyber criminals also developed ingenious new techniques (like reassigning a user’s smartphone SIM card and using two-factor authentication to create a new account password ) to drain millions more from user accounts and wallets. I personally know three crypto investors who said they lost money via the SIM card scam.
These thefts only represent the losses that are visible. CipherTrace estimates that the true number of crypto asset losses was much higher.
CipherTrace research conducted in Q1 revealed a major hole in the current cryptocurrency regulatory fabric with respect to cross-border payments. An analysis of 164 million Bitcoin transactions revealed that cross-border payments from U.S. exchanges to offshore exchanges increased from 45% in the 12 months ending Q1 2017 to 66% in the 12 months ending in Q1 2019.
This is significant because, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists , “$8.7 trillion, 11.5% of the world’s wealth, is hidden offshore.” Once these payments reach exchanges and wallets in other parts of the globe, they fall off the radar of U.S. authorities.
Above: Crypto regulations in the works.
CipherTrace said a wave of tough new global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terror financing (CTF) regulations will roll over the crypto landscape in the coming year. As of April 2019, 17 countries plus the European Union within the jurisdiction of the Financial Stability Board had at least some regulation or standard-setting bodies dealing with cryptocurrencies.
Last year’s crypto crime spree was dominated by major external exchange hacks around the globe — with the biggest occurring in Q1 2018.
However, in the first quarter of this year, insiders, extortionists, and scammers attempted a more diverse range of crypto crimes. As just one example, kidnappers in Norway demanded a 9 million euro (approximately US$10.3 million) ransom in Monero, a privacy coin, for a billionaire’s wife. She has not yet been returned nor have the alleged abductors offered any proof of life, the report said.
While not included in the current theft numbers in this report, on March 6, 2019 the UN Security Council reported that North Korean state-backed hackers successfully breached at least five cryptocurrency exchanges in Asia between January 2017 and September 2018, causing $571 million in losses.
The geopolitical implications of cryptocurrencies also took center stage in Q1 2019, with countries competing to attract crypto businesses and foster related economic growth. Conversely, overt attempts to evade sanctions by hostile nations show that economic adversaries recognize the money-laundering and terrorist financing potential of crypto assets, the report said.
Clearly, these problems will need to be addressed before cryptocurrency goes mainstream.
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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"Amazon expands in-car package delivery to select Ford and Lincoln models | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/amazon-expands-in-car-package-delivery-to-select-ford-and-lincoln-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 Amazon expands in-car package delivery to select Ford and Lincoln models Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Amazon: In-car deliveries 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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Won’t be around to accept a package? If the order’s from Amazon, you needn’t stress. Months after it began making deliveries to the trunks of GM and Cadillac vehicles in 37 cities via Key In-Car , the Seattle company is teaming up with Ford to bring the service to the automaker’s cars.
Owners of 2017-and-newer Ford and Lincoln models — those equipped with wireless modems — can schedule Amazon Prime orders to be delivered directly to their vehicles after linking the FordPass or LincolnWay apps to their Amazon accounts. Deliveries can be scheduled, rescheduled, or redirected to a brick-and-mortar address day-of, and Ford notes that delivery drivers are required to double-check the door handle before departing to make sure it’s locked.
“There are reports that 30 percent of Americans living in houses or townhomes have been victims of package theft. So, it’s easy to get anxious about your deliveries when you aren’t home to receive them,” wrote FordPass ecosystem business leader Lorin Kennedy in a blog post. “It’s a convenient, secure way to ensure your packages are delivered directly to you when you are out for the day, anticipating bad weather or just battling paranoia.” In a somewhat related announcement, Ford said that it’ll soon make available through FordPass and LincolnWay on-demand carwash and detailing services from Spiffy, Rub A Dub, and Sparkl. (Like Amazon deliverypeople, car washers can unlock and lock vehicle doors to clean the interior.) Sparkl launched on-demand carwashing in the Chicago metro area earlier this year, with Spiffy and Rub A Dub to follow in the coming months.
Just last week , Amazon expanded Key for Garage — a keyless delivery option that allows couriers to drop off packages in carports when residents aren’t around — to a host of new U.S. cities, including Charlotte, North Carolina; Columbus, Ohio; Fresno, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Virginia Beach, Virginia. And in January, it announced that Key by Amazon — which allows those same couriers to leave packages inside of homes — would work with new third-party smart locks like Schlage’s Encode Smart Wi-Fi Deadbolt.
Chamberlain’s MyQ and LiftMaster connected garage door openers were the first to support Key for Garage. Customers can open and close doors via the Key app or monitor their statuses to ensure they close post-delivery.
On the commercial side of the equation, there’s Key for Business, a fob for delivery drivers that enables keyless entry to offices and corporate properties. Building managers and landlords can give controlled access to drivers and monitor entries or impose limits on delivery hours, and Amazon says it works with most building access systems.
Currently, Key for Business is available to “hundreds” of buildings across the U.S., including apartments owned by WinnCompanies, Avalon, and Kettler. It builds on Hub , a delivery solution Amazon launched in June 2018 with properties owned by Fairfield Residential, Pinnacle, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Equity Residential, and others.
At the time, Amazon said that more than 500,000 customers in New York, San Francisco, and across the country had access to Hub, which recruits on-site property staff to sign for shipments from Amazon and other shops and websites.
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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"Vader: Immortal hands-on -- Dancing with the Dark Side | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/vader-immortal-demo-swinging-a-lightsaber-with-real-freedom"
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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 Preview Vader: Immortal hands-on — Dancing with the Dark Side 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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Fate chose me today for a dip into the Dark Side of the Force as I did a demo of Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series today at F8 in San Jose, California.
Vader: Immortal debuts as one of over 50 launch games for the Oculus Quest wireless virtual reality headset on May 21 , and it will come to the wired Oculus Rift as well. Fans of both virtual reality and Star Wars are looking forward to it. The wireless headset gives you a sense of freedom we’ve never had before, and that makes swinging a lightsaber feel cool.
The new experience (which Oculus doesn’t call a game) comes from Disney/Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB, and it features Darth Vader in a story-based experience. The demo showed only a part of the game, but the trailer above also shows a great deal.
Above: GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi gets ready to swing a lightsaber in Vader Immortal.
The graphics look great. I had to gear up in the Oculus Quest, which has pass-through video for its headset cameras, which makes setting up a free space for your VR experience easy. In a demo area at Facebook’s F8 event, I put on the headset, headphones, and the new Oculus hand controllers.
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! Meeting the Dark Lord The demo started with a ball-like torture droid floating in front of me. It moved out of the way, revealing an Imperial officer who had a kind of cyborg face. He counseled me not to anger Lord Vader. Then the doors opened, and Vader came into my room with dramatic fanfare.
He asked me to open a kind of magic box. I fiddled with the thing with my Oculus Touch controllers and eventually figured out how to open it. I was able to look around in a 360-degree environment, but I had to make sure I opened the box before Vader got pissed. I did so, and Vader mentioned that I might be the one he was looking for.
After that, the scene switched to a training space. I picked up a lightsaber before me and held the trigger. A blue light beam materialized, and I started swinging it around. I was in another medium, swinging a lightsaber that made buzzing noises.
Then one of those floating Training Remotes from the original Star Wars movie appeared. It started darting around and began to glow red. That was my cue to raise the lightsaber and fend off its laser bolts. I blocked the first one, and it bounced back at the ball, destroying it.
I did this again a few times. But then two balls appeared, and they zapped me from different directions. Blocking then became harder to do, as I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head. Next, a mechanical contraption appeared and released a training droid with a red lightsaber. It did a lot of maneuvering and then closed with me. I was able to anticipate its moves easy enough and blocked. And when it got close enough, I swung my arm and sliced it, and it fell apart with a satisfying crashing sound. I got a two out of three score on the training level.
I did this some more, and then the training went into higher gear. Two balls and two droids came at me at the same time. I started swinging wildly, occasionally panicking, and getting hit. But I kept on taking out the balls and the droids, slashing like a crazy man.
The experience ended. Darth Vader didn’t come fight me in this demo. But I got a taste of what it is like to swing a lightsaber with close, accurate tracking, and graphics that looked pretty good. I only had to wait a few decades for this experience.
Will it be transformative for VR and gaming? We’ll find out when we get our hands on the full experience.
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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"Spot.im raises $25 million for community creation and moderation tools | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/spot-im-raises-25-million-for-community-creation-and-moderation-tools"
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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 Spot.im raises $25 million for community creation and moderation tools 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.
Internet discussion sections are perennially problematic for publishers, particularly when they’re anonymous. In a 2012 study , researchers found that commentators who chose not to reveal their identities tended to pen more “contrarian” and “extreme” replies than those who used their real names, and scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that the nastier the feedback about an article, the more polarized readers tend to become about that article’s contents.
The sad state of affairs prompted Ishay Green, Nadav Shoval, and Roee Goldberg to investigate a solution to foster healthier online interactions. Their brainchild — Spot.im , a provider of cloud-based community creation and moderation tools — launched in 2012, and went on to attract clients like Microsoft, Aol, NBC, Refinery, Huffington Post, Time, Fox News, Little Things, Advertising Age, and USA Today Sport.
Now, it’s gearing up for its next stage of growth.
Spot.im today announced that it’s secured $25 million in series D financing led by Insight Venture Partners, with contributions from Millhouse Capital, AltaIR Capital, Cerca, and Jonah Goodhart. The fresh capital brings the company’s war chest to $63 million, following a $13 million series A round in August 2016 and a $25 million series C round in November 2017.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Our goal has always been to provide publishers with the ability to build a sustainable business organically through their content and community — not arbitrary clicks,” said CEO Shoval, who added that Spot.im is now the largest community platform partner to more than 80% of “top-tier” U.S. publishers that collectively get hundreds of millions of unique monthly visitors. “We are excited by the enthusiasm of our investors and partners for the platform that we’re building. Together, we look forward to shaping a new era for the digital media industry that’s focused first and foremost on delivering the value and experience that readers deserve.” Spot.im’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution can be deployed on a website in just a few lines of code, or integrated with a smartphone app with a bespoke software development kit. Spot.im’s embeddable comments boast bubble awareness indicators that encourage live chats and support rich media like photos, videos, and personalized feeds, and its moderation tools tap machine learning algorithms to automatically detect and remove offending replies and spam.
Spot.im additionally provides products that recycle sites’ most popular content, monetize advertising within user-generated content, and host community and product review pages. And on the reporter side of the equation, Spot.im offers a social live-blogging tool that enables writers to cover real-time updates with layered posts from “anywhere,” including third-party apps like Slack, and to respond to reader comments inline.
“Pressures of monetization have been poisonous to the digital media industry,” said newly appointed Spot.im president and board member Itzik Ben-Bassat. “It’s time that digital media companies begin looking beyond the low-hanging fruit of measuring growth by the sheer volume of clicks or impressions, and Spot.IM is the solution for just that.” Spot.im, which was founded in Tel Aviv, has offices in New York.
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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"Riot Games joins with Salesforce.org and F5 to diversify tech industry | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/riot-games-joins-with-salesforce-org-and-f5-diversify-tech-industry"
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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 Riot Games joins with Salesforce.org and F5 to diversify tech industry Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Riot Games is trying to diversify the games and tech industries.
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Salesforce.org, Riot Games , and F5 Networks announced that they will join the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition , an initiative to double the number of black, Latina, and Native American women receiving computing degrees by 2025. They join other members in becoming founding members.
Coalition member companies have pledged over $15 million towards a collective, philanthropic fund to invest in programs supporting underrepresented women of color pursuing computer science degrees. This is part of Riot’s way of making amends after being exposed for having a sexist culture.
By no means has Riot’s controversy blown over, as the company still faces a tense work environment.
Existing coalition members include other high-profile tech firms such as Adobe, BNY Mellon, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Verizon.
Though many tech companies have individually invested in diversity and inclusion efforts, the industry as a whole has yet to come together to address gender and racial inequity. The Reboot Representation Tech Coalition is leveraging the power and impact of coordinated, corporate philanthropic efforts and influence to more efficiently work towards parity across the tech sector.
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 Coalition spun out of a recent research report published jointly by McKinsey & Company and Pivotal Ventures, Melinda Gates’ investment and incubation company.
“We are excited to join the coalition as a founding member to support this important work,” said Jeffrey Burrell, head of social impact at Riot Games, in a statement. “At Riot, we strive to help people realize their full potential, and we look forward to helping improve the systemic issues facing women of color in the gaming and greater technology industries. With deep collaboration across many stakeholders, together we can make lasting progress for underlying systemic inequalities for underrepresented groups.” In spite of nationwide efforts to broaden participation in computing, the report noted that the share of Black, Latina, and Native American women receiving computing degrees has actually declined from 6% to 4% over the past decade.
Above: Diversity starts in the classroom.
The report identified investment in higher education as a critical component to addressing this disparity. Through measurable, collective action and pooled resources, the coalition is investing in programs and initiatives that focus on recruitment and retention of underrepresented women of color in computing.
“Creating a more diverse and inclusive company is a core tenet of F5. We believe our differences — when embraced with humility and respect — drive smarter decisions, increased innovation, stronger performance, and a culture where everyone can be themselves,” said François Locoh-Donou, CEO of F5 Networks, in a statement. “But beyond our individual efforts, companies need to work together, if we are to make a significant impact on the inequities for underrepresented women of color that hold back the tech industry at large.” “At Salesforce.org, we are committed to empowering a diverse workforce with the skills needed for the tech jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Ebony Frelix Beckwith, executive vice president and chief philanthropy officer of Salesforce.org, in a statement. “We believe businesses have a responsibility to ensure nobody is left behind and are proud to join other leaders to increase representation of women of color in technology.” The Reboot Representation Tech Coalition was formed in September 2018 as a response to the inequities outlined in the research conducted by Pivotal Ventures and McKinsey & Company.
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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"Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid summons a story mode on the consoles | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/power-rangers-battle-for-the-grid-gets-a-story-mode-on-the-consoles"
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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 Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid summons a story mode on the consoles 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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Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is getting a new story mode with the console version of the game via a free downloadable update.
Developed by nWay , the new content for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One will introduce several new elements requested by players, including a new “story mode” by the acclaimed writer Kyle Higgins.
The update will also have new characters, battle arenas, and voiceovers from original cast members. nWay made the game in a partnership with Hasbro and Lionsgate.
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid pits new and classic Rangers and villains from the multiverse’s 25-year history against one another in epic team battles. The game is currently available as a digital download starting at $20.
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! Story mode Above: Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid.
Gamers can now play through a storyline written and voice-directed by writer/director Kyle Higgins (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Shattered Grid, Nightwing, Batman: Gates of Gotham).
The mode also features original artwork by Eisner Award-winning illustrator Dan Mora (Go Go Power Rangers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Klaus). In this new mode, players experience a re-imagining of the Shattered Grid event from Boom! Studios’ Power Rangers comic book series.
When Lord Drakkon, an evil alternate version of Tommy Oliver, sets off a massive campaign across time and space to destroy all Power Rangers, they must band together and fight back, before all falls to his armies.
New voiceovers by original cast Above: Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid’s story mode is available on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.
The new content includes story and combat voiceovers performed by original Power Rangers cast members, including Jason David Frank (Tommy Oliver), Austin St. John (Jason Lee Scott), David J. Fielding (Zordon), Kerrigan Mahan (Goldar), and Meghan “Strawburry17” Camarena (Kimberly).
New characters Three new characters include: Dragon Armor Trini: When the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were viciously attacked by the Black Dragon, a powerful Zord from another dimension with the capability to warp Ranger powers, they were in for the fight of their lives. After he was defeated, Trini was able to refashion the Zord into a powerful suit of enhanced armor.
Udonna: Udonna is a powerful sorceress who trains the Mystic Force Power Rangers in the art of magic. As the Mystic Force White Ranger, this accomplished sorceress uses the power of snow to freeze evil.
Cenozoic Blue Ranger: The Cenozoic Blue Ranger was a loyal and powerful soldier who served with Zordon, the original Red Ranger. Eons after his tragic demise at the hands of the traitorous Green Ranger Rita Repulsa, his Power Coin was found by a teenager named Billy Cranston, who then took on the Blue Ranger mantle.
New Arenas Four new battle arenas are: Selectable Arenas: Corinth and Planet Earth: Cenozoic Era Non-Selectable Arenas (Story Mode only): Command Center (Malfunctioning) and Lord Drakkon’s Throne Room (Flashback) Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid emphasizes accessibility without sacrificing depth and complexity.
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid can be played online and offline. In online mode, players are matched against similarly skilled players from across the world in “Ranked Mode” to compete for League Points, or just for fun with no points lost played in “Casual Mode.” Offline, players can play against another opponent or the computer in “Versus Mode” or fight in “Arcade Mode” to experience a series of battles that ultimately ends against a final boss.
The game also has a “Training Mode” which will allow players to hone their skills against an A.I. led player and a Tutorial to teach players the game’s core mechanics.
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.
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"Oculus opens Quest and Rift S preorders, start shipping on May 21 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/oculus-opens-quest-and-rift-s-preorders-start-shipping-on-may-21"
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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 Oculus opens Quest and Rift S preorders, start shipping on May 21 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Oculus Quest (left) and the Oculus Rift launch May 21, 2019.
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The Oculus Quest and the Rift S launch May 21, and you can preorder these virtual reality headsets now for $400.
The Quest represents a significant shift in virtual reality. It’s a standalone headset — the only wire you’ll deal with is the charging cable, which plugs into the headset. Setup includes the Guardian system, which helps you set up the space in which you’ll use the Quest (and it looks and feels like a holodeck, too, and it’s honest-to-goodness fun to use as you draw an area inside the app while wearing the headset).
Quest comes with two Touch controllers as well.
The Quest will also come with demos of five 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! Beat Saber Creed Journey of the Gods Space Pirate Trainer Sports Scramble Heading into the Rift The Rift S is an incremental upgrade of the original Rift headset for PCs ( you can see the breakdown here ). It features a number of improvements over the older device: Better optics higher resolution display Oculus Insight — the sensors are now on the device, dispensing with external gear. You can even see what things look like outside the headset (Quest has this as well).
Stereo sound Two Touch controllers You can preorder the devices on Amazon, Best Buy, and the Microsoft Store in the U.S. Or you can buy them from Facebook at Oculus.com.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"Masabi raises $20 million for mobile ticketing tools | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/masabi-raises-20-million-for-mobile-ticketing-tools"
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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 Masabi raises $20 million for mobile ticketing tools 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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Masabi , a U.K.-based developer of mobile ticketing and public transport payments software, today announced that it’s secured $20 million in a series B round led by Smedvig Capital, with participation from MMC Ventures and other investors. The fresh capital, which brings the company’s total raised to roughly $40.8 million following a $12 million venture round in December 2015, will be used to accelerate the global expansion of its platform, according to CEO Brian Zanghi.
It’s poised for growth. Last year, Masabi validated over 85 million passengers through its software-as-a-service platform Justride, which boasts integrations with Transit , Jorudan, Keolis, Kisio Digital, Gertekand, Jorudan, and other partners. Notably, Justride also handles in-app public transport ticketing for Uber in Denver, Colorado , and it’s on track to exceed $1 billion in annual ticketing sales in the next year.
“For too long, cutting-edge innovation in transit ticketing was only available to megacities,” said Zanghi. “But a quick and easy ticketing experience shouldn’t be the sole preserve of these cities. It should be available to passengers using any public transport service anywhere around the globe.” Justride enables customers such as New York’s MTA, Los Angeles’ Metrolink, Las Vegas’ RTC, and Boston’s MBTA to choose how they’d like to sell tickets to their passengers. White-label templates allow agencies to brand the ticket-buying experience however they please, while Justride’s API enables third-party apps and sites to push tickets to users’ accounts.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! From Justride’s cloud-hosted administrative dashboard, Masabi clients can perform tasks like auditing ticket sales, issuing entitlements and concessions, accessing revenue and usage reports, analyzing operational trends, managing customer service requests, and monitoring validation assets. And through the startup’s Inspect Validation Suite, which offers a number of off-the-shelf validation solutions (including gate retrofitting) that work with existing ticketing hardware, they can add support for contactless bank cards (Contactless EMV), account-based tokens (which use a barcode linked to a stored value), smartcards, contactless mobile payments via services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, and paper barcodes.
Above: Masabi’s range of ticketing solutions.
Masabi’s Inspect Handheld app for iPhone and Android, for instance, scans and decodes barcodes and smartcard tickets in less than 490 milliseconds, while the Val100 — a standalone ticket scanner designed for use on buses, ferries, and station platforms — accommodates EMV, near-field communication (NFC), and Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) technologies.
“Through innovations such as simply being able to tap a contactless bank card to travel and integrations into the top mobility apps, Masabi is delivering on this vision,” said Zanghi. “As we enter a new phase, having the support of Smedvig Capital, MMC Ventures, Mastercard and our other investors means we can continue to drive the market forward and help ever more cities and transit operators around the world embrace the latest in ticketing and payments technology and the future of practical MaaS.” Masabi — which claims that Justride takes just “days” to deploy and that it lets the average customer purchase a ticket in 30 seconds or less — says it’s working with more than 50 “leading” transport authorities, operators, partners, and cities in 10 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Additionally, Masabi says its Inspect Validation Suite is live with over 17 agencies across three continents around the globe and validating “millions” of tickets every year.
Masabi has competition in mobility and transportation service providers like Transloc, Passport, and SilverRail Technologies, but its backers believe that the Masabi’s momentum speaks for itself.
“The combination of Masabi’s track record of customers, innovation and technology made this investment decision one we feel extremely enthusiastic about and we are excited about working closely with them to accelerate their global expansion,” said Smedvig managing director Jonathan Lerner.
“We’re proud to see Masabi having scaled from London to the world, changing the way people move around cities every day. $1 billion in annual ticket sales is only a milestone — the next phase is about partnering with and powering those that the public trust to get them where they are going, from transit agencies to ride-sharing and planning apps,” added MMC Ventures partner Simon Menashy. “As one of Masabi’s earliest investors, it has been great to have Smedvig Capital buy into Masabi’s vision.” In addition to its London headquarters, Masabi has offices in New York, Denver, and Cluj, Romania. Other investors include Alvarium Investments, m8 Capital, Mastercard, and Keolis.
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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"Kony DBX Teams Up With Micronotes to Offer New AI Capabilities to Banks and Credit Unions | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/kony-dbx-teams-up-with-micronotes-to-offer-new-ai-capabilities-to-banks-and-credit-unions"
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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 Press Release Kony DBX Teams Up With Micronotes to Offer New AI Capabilities to Banks and Credit Unions Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Kony DBX Customers Can Now Access Micronotes’ AI Solution to Engage with Digital Banking Customers, Validate Their Financial Needs, Improve Loyalty, and Generate Sales AUSTIN, Texas & BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 30, 2019– Kony, Inc.
, the leading provider of digital banking and low-code platform solutions, and Micronotes , the leading provider of artificially intelligent marketing automation for digital banking, have teamed up to bring Micronotes’ advanced patented solution to financial institutions using the Kony DBX platform. Available immediately in all regions, the Micronotes’ solution will be fully integrated with Kony DBX to provide institutions with a seamless ability to engage with digital banking users in ways that advertising and chatbots cannot match.
Micronotes’ cloud-based AI-driven solution leverages bank-held data to have relevant, personalized conversations with bank and credit union customers during online and mobile banking sessions. These conversations – which take just seconds – enable institutions to validate customers’ needs and make appropriate offers that generate qualified leads, which are automatically sent to the front lines for rapid and intelligent action.
These interactions help institutions better understand their existing customer base and cross-sell financial services such as loans, CDs, and refinancing opportunities. Micronotes uses machine-learning algorithms to continually feed interview response data back into the system to train predictive models and increase targeting accuracy.
“We are pleased to partner with Micronotes to bring the benefits of the industry’s leading AI-driven marketing automation solution to our clients,” said Jeffery Kendall, executive vice president and general manager, Kony DBX. “The growing popularity of digital banking provides great convenience to consumers, yet also presents challenges for banks and credit unions seeking to engage with customers who don’t visit branches. Offering Micronotes’ solution is a game changer because it gives traditional banks and credit unions an edge against digital-only and challenger banks that already fully harness AI-driven analytics. Because Micronotes is used by organizations of all sizes, its state-of-the-art capabilities help level the playing field for institutions that use Kony DBX’s powerful digital banking platform.” Christian Klacko, COO and cofounder of Micronotes, said: “Kony has become a strong, fast-growing market leader by delivering outstanding products and solutions to its expansive client base. Now, those banks and credit unions can take advantage of Micronotes’ AI solution to validate customers’ needs and make appropriate offers that generate qualified leads and drive sales.” Micronotes also provides other valuable banking services, including: Net Promoter Score® – NPS® survey capabilities are included with every Micronotes subscription, so bankers can run campaigns regularly to measure and improve customer loyalty.
Managing attrition and delinquency – Micronotes’ machine learning predicts which profitable customers are at risk of leaving their financial institution, giving bankers the opportunity to initiate outreach. Micronotes also predicts which users are at risk of missing payments, enabling institutions to help customers work through financial difficulties and prevent loan losses.
Kony DBX represents a major advancement to help banks and credit unions deliver frictionless digital experiences to customers across every point of interaction. Kony is the first vendor to provide pre-built, native and web apps along with a purpose-built digital banking platform for financial institutions. The Kony DBX platform builds on Kony’s digital expertise in multiple industries, with advanced technology solutions supported by an expansive partner network.
Kony has been named a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Development Platform, Q2 2018 report and The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms for AD&D Professionals, Q1 2019.
Kony has also been recognized as a “Leader” in the IDC MarketScape: North America Digital Banking Customer Experience Platforms 2019 Vendor Assessment Report.
Kony is also a Callahan’s 2018 Innovation Series winner , and earned two top honors at the American Banker Digital Banking 2018 event: Runner Up for Best in Show and People’s Choice.
About Kony, Inc.
Kony is a fast-growing leader in digital experience development platforms and the emerging low-code platform market; and a recognized leader in digital banking.
Kony Quantum provides low-code without limits, a next-generation low-code app development platform that delivers rich digital experiences.
Kony DBX is the banking and financial services arm of Kony, Inc.
and is a globally recognized leader in digital banking transformation. With a portfolio of modern, frictionless applications powered by the industry’s most recognized platform, Kony DBX enables banks and credit unions of any size to accelerate innovation – without compromising what’s critical.
For more information on Kony DBX and Kony DBX Retail Banking, visit Kony DBX or connect with Kony DBX on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Micronotes Micronotes is the leader in AI-driven marketing automation for digital banking. The company’s fast, automated and cloud-based digital marketing automation platform applies machine learning to customer data to improve engagement and effectively cross-sell financial services through digital service channels. Privately held, Micronotes is based in Boston.
For more information on Micronotes, visit https://www.micronotes.com or connect with Micronotes on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190430005420/en/ Jean Kondo Kony, Inc.
[email protected] +1 510-823-4728 Julie Sigler WE Communications [email protected] +1 415-547-7025 Kevin Flanagan Micronotes [email protected] +1-857-302-0731 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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"Instagram introduces new shopping, donation, and camera features | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/instagram-introduces-new-shopping-donation-and-camera-features"
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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 Instagram introduces new shopping, donation, and camera features Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apps 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.
Today marked the kickoff of Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference , which was predictably full of announcements. In a keynote this morning at the McEnery Convention Center, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri shared that Instagram , the company’s popular photo- and video-sharing app with more than 1 billion users, is getting three major enhancements: curated product collections, donation stickers, and a revamped camera interface.
“People come to Instagram to be with their close friends. They stay to be inspired by art, fashion, sports, and entertainment — as well as the people behind those crafts,” Instagram wrote in a blog post. “Enabling expression and fostering those connections are at the heart of Instagram, and today we’re announcing new ways to strengthen those connections with the people and things you love.” Shopping Above: Product tags in Instagram.
Remember Checkout? It’s the feature Instagram debuted earlier this year that lets businesses sell goods directly to U.S. users, who can check out and pay via Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Discover, or PayPal within the app. Starting next week, Checkout is gaining a tagging tool that will let users shop looks from brands and creators like Vogue, Hypebeast, GQ, Refinery29, Elle, Kim Kardashian, Kimberly Drew, Kylie Jenner, Chiara Ferragni, Camila Coelho, and Huda Kattan.
Here’s how it works: Over the coming weeks, a “small group” of creators will be able to tag products from businesses participating in the Checkout beta. Followers will be able to quickly view these items with the option to buy, while tagged creators and brands will receive insights within Instagram to help track the performance of shopping posts.
Product tags, which Instagram began testing in March, will no doubt boost the company’s bottom line. Instagram last revealed that more than 130 million users were tapping product tags in shopping posts every month, up from 90 million in September.
Donation sticker in Stories Above: Donation stickers in Instagram Stories.
Instagram is not just making it easier to buy things — it’s also introducing a new way to solicit donations for nonprofits. As previously announced by Facebook director of project management for social good Emily Dalton Smith, users will be able to raise money through Instagram Stories by launching the camera, snapping a picture, tapping the sticker icon, and selecting the new donation sticker from the tray.
Once the stickered Story is live, swiping up on it will reveal the total amount raised, 100% of which goes to the registered nonprofit. The many participating organizations include Black Girls Code, JED Foundation, No Kid Hungry, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, ASPCA, Malala Fund, GLAAD, and the Nature Conservancy.
“The donation sticker will help us create two-way conversations with current and new supporters that will elevate awareness for the Boys & Girls Club brand in a whole new way,” said Boys and Girls Clubs of America senior vice president Karl Kaiser in a statement. “Instagram is one of our fastest-growing channels, and it’s critical for our mission to have the ability on this platform to inspire advocacy around issues that impact kids and teens everywhere.” Camera and Create Mode Above: Instagram’s new camera UI and Create Mode.
If you are tired of the Instagram app’s old-in-the-tooth camera UI, good news: It’ll soon be replaced with a new one. Instagram says that in a few weeks it will launch a “fresh look” with a slick, semicircular mode switcher feature — Create Mode — that will let users share photo- and video-free Stories and posts with Quiz stickers, GIFs, and other content. Another noticeable change: Modes like Superzoom and AR Effects have been relegated to a new Normal tab.
“This new camera will make it simpler to use popular creative tools like effects and interactive stickers, so you can express … what [you’re] doing, thinking, or feeling” more freely, wrote Instagram in a blog post, “especially for those moments in-between when there isn’t photo or video to share.” App researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who spotted the new UI in March, noted that it looked a bit like a DSLR mechanical circular switcher.
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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"How SMBs can increase revenue by 4X next year by digitizing today (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/how-smbs-can-increase-revenue-by-4x-next-year-by-digitizing-today-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 How SMBs can increase revenue by 4X next year by digitizing today (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by DocuSign Customers choose to work with you not just based on what you deliver, but how you deliver it, and with affordable, accessible business technology, SMBs can exceed customer expectations while boosting sales growth. Learn more about how tech is transforming the way SMBs do business in this VB Live event! Access for free on demand right here.
Digitization is the foundation of customer engagement, service, and sales processes, says Katie Foote, vice president of demand generation for small business at Salesforce.
And, as Dave Simon, vice president, small business sales at DocuSign explains, “Buyers today, through their mobile devices and their online behavior, they’re leaving a digital footprint. They’re expressing interest in products and services. They’re telling you when they need help with existing purchases. All of that trail gives you an opportunity to personalize the customer experience.” And digitation means you can scale that experience to thousands or even millions of customers.
“Businesses have a much larger opportunity than ever before to use that data to connect in new and different ways, and deliver more relevant and targeted communications,” Foote says. “When I think about my own consumer experiences, I’m engaging most with the brands who are sending me the most personalized and relevant communications. That’s really the power of digitization.” It’s important for organizations, regardless of what size they are, to take into consideration who their audience is, their preferences, what type of data and information you have about those customers, and then using all of that to send the right message in the right channel at the right time — the text alerts of a flight app, for instance, or the birthday coupon from a customer’s favorite brand.
But a gap often exists between all of the data, and then reaching your customers. And while a r ecent Deloitte study revealed that compared to businesses with low levels of digital engagement, digitally advanced small businesses earned two times as much revenue per employee, experienced 4x revenue growth, and more, small businesses aren’t taking full advantage of digital tools.
“Some of the reasons behind the apprehension,” says Simon, “[include] a lack of confidence in technical skills, a lack of budget, a lack of time, a lack of clarity on how to apply digital technology to one’s business.” “Change, even when, it’s positive, can bring a real learning curve,” Foote says. “SMBs report a wide range of challenges beyond budget constraints, including customization difficulties and lack of time to train employees. The most important evaluation criteria for new technology is, once again, ease of use, ease of setup, and simplicity of maintenance.” But because the results of those companies who adopt are so strong, it’s a competitive necessity to embrace digital technology to help SMBs deliver success across the entire customer life cycle, from finding prospects to winning customers, and then keeping those customers. And because there are so many different digital technologies that a small business can invest in, it’s critical to make the determination as to where your company’s biggest need is.
Do you have a reach challenge? If you have a reach challenge, you might want to spend or invest earlier in search or display advertising, with a company like Google. Do you have a retention problem? Then maybe a platform offered by Salesforce is most appropriate. If you have a challenge winning customers or bringing customers across the line into a state of closed and won, then Salesforce Sales Cloud and investments like Docusign, Zoom (for online and video conferences), or Outreach (for sales-driven email communication) and other companies can help you compete at scale.
“But it’s key to go with partners that have a good reputation for making small businesses successful,” says Simon. “Those partners will be easy to use, have many prebuilt integrations, and allow you to quickly get up and running and integrate into your existing processes without a major investment.” “There are so many more affordable options these days for SMBs, which is great news,” adds Foote. “There are also lots of products that offer free trials. You don’t have to make this big lofty financial investment without having tried something.” And one of the really important things to remember as an SMB, in addition to making sure your vendor integrates with other technologies, is you need to have the ability for your systems to continue to grow.
“A lot of the SMBs we talk to on a daily basis have aspirations to be enterprises someday, to grow continuously,” Foote says. “If you’re outgrowing your technology stack every couple of years, that’s going to stop you from moving as quickly as you would like. Make sure you’re asking questions about growth potential over time.” You also want to make sure they’re on your side every step of the way, she adds. When you’re talking with a company about your most pressing needs and how their technology might best meet those and address your pain points, make sure they have a point of view on that, and that they’re committed to helping for the long term.
“Free trials and easing into a small group of users is a good way to prove the success of the investment before you spend more,” Simon says. “The good news is many providers that focus on small businesses make that easier to do today, staying very focused on starting small, getting quick wins, and then expanding, so that you’re not investing too much time and too much money on a failed initiative.” “The purpose behind these type of technologies, like CRM, is to further enhance those customer relationships, to get to know them, to understand why they chose you, to keep them happy,” Foote says. “Those small touches can really go a long way. The only way to scale is to invest in technology that collects all of that data and helps make sense of it for you, to impact your marketing, your sales, and your customer loyalty engagements.” To learn more about how technology can impact your business’s success now and in the future, including case studies, technology adoption recommendations, thoughts about AI, tangible next steps to get started on this journey and more, catch up on this VB Live event! Don’t miss out! Access for free on demand right here.
Webinar attendees will learn: How to deliver success across the entire customer lifecycle from lead to retention How to configure, price, and quote complex deals, fast and efficiently How to accelerate business by closing deals with instant sign-offs on agreements How customer-focused organizations win business with personalized experiences Speakers: Katie Foote , Vice President, Demand Generation for Small Business, Salesforce Dave Simon , Vice President, Small Business Sales, DocuSign 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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"Fnatic raises $19 million to expand its global esports brand | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/fnatic-raises-19-million-to-expand-its-global-esports-brand"
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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 Fnatic raises $19 million to expand its global esports brand Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Fnatic cofounder Sam Mathews.
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Fnatic , the London-based global esports brand, has raised $19 million in funding to fuel its expansion. It also shuffled its executive team.
Fnatic founder Sam Mathews will become CEO again, while former CEO Wouter Sleijffers is stepping down after four years. Nick Fry, former Mercedes AMG F1 CEO, has been named chairman, and Affectv founder Glen Calvert has been named chief operating officer.
Entrepreneur Lev Leviev of LVL1 Group led the round, with support from investors including Beringea, BlackPine, Unbound, and Joi Ito.
“It’s been a good, successful 12 months, and we’ve solidified ourselves as the biggest global esports brand when it comes to results and awareness,” Mathews said, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We are shifting into the next gear as a business. It’s a huge step toward becoming a global lifestyle brand.” 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! With this investment, Fnatic will enter the next phase of its global expansion, strengthen involvement in tier-one leagues, including the League of Legends European Championships, launch new product categories in its esports equipment subsidiary including a new audio line.
It will also beef up its marketing for both new and existing brands globally.
Above: Fnatic draws big crowds.
“Esports is the future of entertainment as well as one of the most dynamic and exciting emerging industries out there,” said Leviev, in a statement. “Fnatic has established itself as a driving force both on the competitive stage and as a global business in esports, I’m excited to be part of the next chapter as Fnatic scales into a global lifestyle brand.” Few esports clubs have been as successful as Fnatic, which mother-and-son team Anne and Sam Mathews started 15 years ago.
“We are now seeing a large number of global brands entering the world of esports and capitalizing on the wealth of opportunities it presents,” Fry said. “With Fnatic’s heritage, experience and fanbase, we are able to offer a direct route for these brands to unlock key audiences in millennials and Gen Z. The future holds infinite possibilities for Fnatic in this exciting time.” Above: Fnatic leaders (left to right) Glen Calvert (COO), Nick Fry (chairman), and Sam Mathews (CEO).
Fnatic’s League of Legends team made it to second place in last year’s LoL World Championships, which was viewed by an estimated 100 million people worldwide. Fnatic has its own line of hardware, and its teams generated 2.4 billion hours watched in 2018.
The latest round of investment will be used to structure the company for further expansion into Asia and North America, continue to partner with the most forward-thinking global brands, and cement its position as the leading lifestyle esports organization globally.
In London, Fnatic is launching a 10,000-square-feet training facility. It also has facilities in Berlin and Kuala Lumpur. It has hired sports psychologists and trainers to help the teams with performance. Fnatic is also launching more of its own branded game hardware products such as a new audio headset.
Above: Fnatic at the League of Legends World Championships.
“We have a very big roadmap, which we’re extremely excited about,” Mathews said.
As for the esports landscape, Mathews said, “It looks extremely exciting. Every year, there are more games that are exciting, like Apex Legends, which I think has huge potential and esports title.” He added, “Fortnite has a huge competition coming up in the World Cup. So we’re investing heavily into bringing upon our players on for that. And there is League of Legends in Europe, which has brought on loads of major big brand partnerships. I think that esports is the future of entertainment. I think that it’s the most engaging of all your entertainment platforms. And that’s kind of the reason why [Netflix CEO] Reed Hastings has said that he sees more threat from Fortnite than he does from HBO.” Fnatic has more than 50 team members across ten games, and Fnatic has a total of 90 staff. The company has around 6 million followers across its channels.
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 loves Stories, just not in Workplace | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/facebook-loves-stories-just-not-in-workplace"
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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 loves Stories, just not in Workplace Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Workplace by Facebook 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.
A new Facebook redesign internally referred to as FB5 launched today for users in the United States, the culmination of hundreds of details that CEO Mark Zuckerberg said adds up to “the biggest change to the app and website in the last five years.” The new Facebook app launch coincided with several news stories shared at the F8 developer conference, like WhatsApp video calls for Portal , the new Oculus Quest , and a redesign of Workplace by Facebook, a workplace communications app that competes with Microsoft Teams and Slack.
The Stories format, where content is visible only to friends and disappears in 24 hours, became popular on Snapchat but has since come to Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. In roughly two years or less, each surpassed Snapchat and now commands hundreds of millions of daily users.
Stories were made more prominent in the new Facebook app, and today Zuckerberg said Stories are core to the future of a more private and ephemeral social experience on Facebook.
Stories from Instagram will soon be visible to Facebook Messenger users, and with the unification of Facebook’s messaging products there’s a good chance Stories will someday be visible on Portal. But the feature is not yet ready for the enterprise, Workplace VP Julien Codorniou told VentureBeat in an interview at F8 in San Jose, California.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Workplace may not be the place for Stories Since the launch of Workplace in October 2016 , other popular Facebook features, like Safety Check and Facebook Live, have been incorporated into Workplace. Some customers have asked for Stories, but don’t expect to see your boss sharing them anytime soon, Codorniou said.
“It’s so important for millennials right now, sharing Stories, but we just did not think of it as an enterprise use case,” he told VentureBeat. “Some of our customers told us ‘Hey, since millennials use that to communicate, why don’t you bring that to Workplace? It’s one of those things that we keep hearing, and we are proceeding carefully with as well, because it would mean a big shift for our users.” One tangible difference between the two platforms is that Workplace gives company administrators additional controls to monitor and record activity, so Stories that disappear after 24 hours might not work.
“Since the data belongs to the company, we need the company to manage the data — how they want to distribute it or moderate it. So we have some constraints that Facebook doesn’t have, because we serve companies who pay for our product, and they want to be able to moderate and administrate everything that’s happening on the platform,” he said.
Almost Facebook An app redesign isn’t always interesting or welcome news, but with Workplace, it’s sort of a matter of necessity. The solution offers enterprise customers easy company-wide deployment because it resembles Facebook, an app with 2 billion daily active users.
Look closely though, and you will spot nuanced differences between Workplace and Facebook’s eponymous platform.
While the Facebook redesign places more emphasis on Stories and group communication, the Workplace by Facebook redesign focuses on chat, News Feed, and groups. A Notifications tab has also been added to act as an inbox and tell you about any mentions of your name or activity related to your company department or groups you follow.
Both promise faster performance speeds and a simpler, less cluttered user experience.
“We adapted what we shipped for Facebook to the expectations of companies who pay for Workplace, to make sure that Workplace is not just a place where you talk about the work, but also the place where you get the work done,” Codorniou said. “We optimized for teamwork and collaboration, not for top-down enhancements, which is how Workplace started when we launched the product.” Above: Workplace by Facebook Some using the new web version of Workplace may also find it easier to send messages, with no need to open the separate Work Chat app and with group chats made by default for each Workplace group.
“I think there is a bigger emphasis on chat and notifications,” he said. “Workplace used to be — when it started, it was a very News Feed/Groups-first product. With the new interface, Groups and News Feed are equally important as chat, because people use Workplace for chat, as well, especially on mobile, so we wanted these two tabs to be equally important.” Above: Old Workplace by Facebook Workplace by Facebook has 2 million paid users , the company announced in February. At last year’s F8 event, Facebook announced that Workplace had more than 50 popular SaaS integrations with companies like Jira by Atlassian, ServiceNow, and Kronos.
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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"Facebook adds Windows support to Spark AR Studio | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/f8-facebook-adds-windows-support-to-spark-ar-studio"
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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 adds Windows support to Spark AR Studio Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Mark Zuckerberg using Spark AR with his kids and mother via Portal.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the Spark AR Studio augmented reality app creation platform will now have support for Windows and Mac, with more features for better efficiency and interactivity.
Facebook introduced its AR Studio software suite for developers in 2017 so they could make augmented reality experiences for smartphones. And since last year’s F8, over one billion people have used AR experiences powered by Spark AR, Facebook said.
Facebook is also opening Instagram to the entire Spark AR creator and developer ecosystem this summer.
Hundreds of millions of people use these experiences monthly across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Portal.
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! Speaking at F8 2019, Zuckerberg said the update to Spark AR Studio includes support for Windows, as well as new features that bring more efficiency, interactivity, and control to the AR creation process.
It includes a new feature that allows developers to break a project down into small reusable chunks called Blocks. They can use Blocks to better organize a project or create Blocks to help jumpstart a project. Developers can share these Blocks with each other.
In the latest version of Spark AR Studio, Facebook has rewritten its Patch Editor from the ground up with a new user interface with features such as Blocks and control over audio effects.
Zuckerberg showed his mother using Portal and a Spark AR app to wear a funny face while reading a book to his children.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"Docker introduces Docker Enterprise 3.0 with desktop integration, launches Docker Applications | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/docker-introduces-docker-enterprise-3-0-with-desktop-integration-launches-docker-applications"
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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 Docker introduces Docker Enterprise 3.0 with desktop integration, launches Docker Applications Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Docker.
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The growth of Docker , the San Francisco company behind the eponymous open source containerization platform, shows no signs of abating. Last March, it revealed that over 3.5 million apps have been placed in containers — portable execution environments that comprise the apps themselves along with requisite libraries and frameworks — using Docker technology and that more than 37 billion containerized apps have been downloaded globally. Meanwhile, analysts at DataDog report that Docker adoption among organizations with at least 1,000 hosts stands at 47%.
Many of Docker’s corporate users (more than 450, in fact) tap Docker Enterprise Edition, a suite of tools cross-compatible with local and cloud environments like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Linux distributions, and Windows. The end-to-end container-as-a-service (CaaS) platform has evolved rapidly since its debut in March 2017, and today at Docker’s annual DockerCon developer conference in San Francisco, the firm revealed the next major release in public beta: Docker Enterprise 3.0.
“Today we have over 750 enterprise customers driving their digital transformation efforts with the Docker platform,” said Docker CEO and chairman Steve Singh. “These companies are using technology to drive innovation across their entire organization. As the only independent container platform vendor, we’re excited to be able to offer customers high-velocity innovation, choice, and security across their entire application portfolio.” Starting with Docker Enterprise 3.0, Docker Enterprise is integrated with Docker Desktop, Docker’s development environment for building, testing, and shipping containerized apps. Enhanced automation tools enable developers to deliver image registries with access to Docker Hub, Docker’s hosted library of over 100,000 container images, and to deploy apps to “enterprise-ready” environments.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Docker is introducing Docker Applications alongside Docker Enterprise 3.0, a technology that complements tools like Application Templates, Application Designer, and Version Packs and aims to unify management of apps distributed across toolchains into a single packaging format. It’s based on Cloud Native Application Bundle (CNAB) specification jointly developed by Docker and Microsoft and lets developers define the containers and resources to be deployed to runtime environments and tooling. Additionally, it automates the creation of Compose files, the configuration files that define services, networks, and volumes.
In the spirit of platform agnosticism, Docker is this week rolling out Docker Kubernetes Services (DKS), an offering that integrates Kubernetes — Google’s open source container orchestration system — from “developer desktop to production server.” Spotlight features include enhanced security, access controls, and automated lifecycle management, in addition to support for Docker Swarm Services (DDS) that interact with several instances across hosts.
Docker also took the wraps off of Docker Enterprise-as-a-service, a fully managed service on-premises or in the cloud. It’s initially available from French technology consulting company Capgemini and includes on-demand scaling, usage-based pricing, and monthly billing.
Lastly, Docker announced a new solution offering available through its Professional Services and Consulting program — Accelerate Greenfield — that supports app development and helps customers devise a containerization strategy. “Our new, complementary solution … enables [organizations] to quickly build new, container-first applications — anything from a new LAMP stack to cloud-native microservices — and deploy them on the same Docker Enterprise platform alongside their traditional apps,” said Docker Enterprise executive vice president and general manager Scott Johnston.
The release of Docker Enterprise 3.0 comes a week after Docker and British holding company Arm announced a strategic partnership that will see the two companies streamline the app development solutions for cloud, edge, and internet of things environments built on Arm architectures, and months after Docker secured $92 million of a targeted $192 million venture round. (To date, it’s raised $334 million.) 451 Research anticipates the app container industry will be worth more than $4.3 billion by 2022, and the competition is fierce. Red Hat’s OpenShift Container Platform and Pivotal’s Container Service (PKS) directly compete with Docker Enterprise Edition, as do managed Kubernetes offerings like AKS, EKS, and GKE.
Still, while Docker has never publicly revealed its revenue, Singh told reporters at DockerCon 2018 that it’s generating “triple-digit millions” in bookings and attracting big-name customers like ADP, Assa Abloy, GlaxoSmithKline, MetLife, PayPal, Splunk, Visa, and William & Mary.
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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"Dell launches commercial laptops with fast sign-in and connection features | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/dell-launches-commercial-laptops-with-fast-sign-in-and-connection-features"
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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 Dell launches commercial laptops with fast sign-in and connection features Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Dell Latitude laptops on the assembly line.
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Dell is launching its 10th generation of Latitude commercial laptops with new features to help road warriors connect more quickly.
The laptops come with Dell Express Sign-in, which lets you sign in instantly with proximity sensors enabled by Intel Context Sensing Technology (on the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 model). ExpressConnect technology will automatically find the best Wi-Fi signal and provide up to 40% faster throughput than a conventional antenna.
Another new feature is ExpressCharge, which charges the laptop battery up to 35% in 15 minutes or 80% in an hour. The goal is to help workers be productive longer, no matter when, where, or how they work. The laptops also offer a new way to integrate hardware and software to help IT departments deploy, manage, secure, and support the devices.
The laptops feature Intel’s older Core 8th Gen processors, and their more compact designs make them easier to carry.
Above: Dell used CNC aluminum and carbon fiber cloth materials in its latest Latitudes.
According to a recent survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Dell, full-time working adults consider built-in security features one of the three most important factors when choosing a work PC. In fact, nearly 80% believe having security features built into their work PC helps keep their company’s data safe.
To address these concerns, the notebooks add new layers of enterprise-class security that save users the hassle of remembering passwords, and they offer lightning-fast, secure sign-on. Many new Latitudes can now be equipped with fingerprint readers built into the power button and Windows Hello-capable IR cameras for trusted, biometric authentication.
Many systems can also be equipped with a Dell SafeScreen, new camera privacy shutters, and the FIPS 201 contacted Smart Card Reader or contactless Smart Card Reader with SafeID to protect user credentials.
The laptops also support Dell’s newly announced SafeBIOS utility, which gives customers added visibility into BIOS changes by verifying the firmware’s integrity securely in the cloud.
The 10th generation Latitude portfolio is optimized for the new Dell Technologies Unified Workspace, an intelligent, holistic platform that simplifies the entire end-user device life cycle for IT — from deployment and support to management and security.
“The modern workforce’s computing needs have changed. They’re not at their desks nine to five. They’re in motion between meetings, remote, or frequently traveling, and one-size-fits-all laptops won’t cut it,” said Rahul Tikoo, vice president of Commercial Mobility Products at Dell, in a statement. “Our new Latitudes make it easier and more enjoyable to work, collaborate, and innovate anytime, anywhere. With security concerns looming over both employees and IT departments, businesses can rely on our new Latitudes, combined with Dell Technologies Unified Workspace, to make it simple for IT to ensure workers have the best device for their needs — up and running fast, working smarter, and always secure, wherever they are.” In addition to the award-winning Latitude 7400 2-in-1 launched this year at CES, the new Latitude line includes: Latitude 7000 series Above: Dell Latitude 7400 The new Latitude 7000 series notebooks come with 13- and 14-inch screens, and they are up to 5% smaller than the previous generation and up to 10% smaller than competitors in their class, Dell said.
The laptops feature an innovative variable-torque, drop-hinge design that enables easy, one-finger opening of the anti-glare, narrow-border display. They can also be configured with Dell’s SafeScreen technology, which narrows the screen’s field of view for security when working in public, without major impact to battery life or image quality.
The laptops are equipped with up to 32GB of memory and up to an industry-leading 20 hours of run time, 25% more than the previous generation. The Latitude 7000 series includes the first notebooks to offer an optional 4×4 CAT 16 WWAN antenna that delivers up to 1GB of LTE speed on the go.
The portfolio includes the Latitude 7200 2-in-1, which sports a premium brushed anodized aluminum finish; backlit keyboard; and a thinner, lighter design, with a 12-inch screen. The Latitude 7×00 laptops start at $1,300, while the Latitude 7200 2-in-1 starts at $1,000.
Latitude 5000 series Above: Dell Latitude 5300 2-in-1 In 13-, 14- and 15-inch form factors that are up to 10% smaller than the previous generation and up to 14% smaller than competitive products, the new Latitude 5000 series includes the world’s smallest mainstream business-class notebook, Dell said.
The laptops have a carbon fiber-reinforced chassis, narrow-border displays in HD, full HD or touchscreen configurations, and up to 20 hours of run time.
Dell is introducing the new Latitude 5300 2-in-1, the world’s smallest mainstream business-class 13-inch 2-in-1. Starting at just 3.15 pounds, the Latitude 5300 360 hinge-convertible features a durable full HD edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass 5 touchscreen display with anti-glare and anti-smudge coatings. It can be configured with up to 32GB of memory and up to 1TB of storage.
The Latitude 5×00 laptops start at $820. The Latitude 5×01 laptops start at $1,190, and the Latitude 5300 2-in-1 starts at $950.
Latitude 3000 series Above: Dell Latitude 3301 The new Latitude 3000 series offers entry-level laptops with a smaller footprint and an updated look in 13- and 14-inch models.
The Latitude 3×00 laptops start at $530. The company also offers a Dell Dock at 130 watts for $230 and 180 watts for $280, as well as a performance dock for $330 and a Thunderbolt dock for $330.
Dell made the announcements at the Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas.
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"AMD reports Q1 2019 revenue of $1.27 billion and predicts growth for Q2 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amd-reports-q1-revenue-of-1-27-billion-and-predicts-growth-for-q2"
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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 AMD reports Q1 2019 revenue of $1.27 billion and predicts growth for Q2 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, at the company's press and analyst day.
Advanced Micro Devices reported results for the first quarter ended March 31 that slightly beat earnings expectations. The PC chip maker reported non-GAAP earnings of 6 cents a share on revenues of $1.27 billion, with lower client chip sales to blame for lower performance compared to a year ago.
AMD’s performance is closely watched, alongside Intel, as a barometer for the health of the PC ecosystem. AMD’s stock is up 4% to $29.04 a share in after-hours trading.
Analysts expected Santa Clara, California-based AMD to report 5 cents per share on revenues of $1.26 billion for the first quarter.
“We delivered solid first quarter results with significant gross margin expansion as Ryzen and Epyc processor and datacenter GPU revenue more than doubled year-over-year,” said Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, in an email. “We look forward to the upcoming launches of our next-generation 7-nanometer PC, gaming and data center products which we expect to drive further market share gains and financial growth.” AMD said that revenue from the computing and graphics division fell 26% from a year ago to $831 million. The company said the drop was due to lower graphics sales, offset by increased client processor and datacenter graphics processing unit (GPU) sales.
On Monday, in honor of its 50th anniversary, AMD unveiled the new Gold Edition versions of the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X processor and AMD Radeon VII graphics card.
The revenues were down 23% from a year ago, and earnings per share was down compared to 11 cents a share a year ago.
Above: AMD introduced the third-generation of Ryzen chips, for shipment in mid-2019.
For the second quarter of 2019, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $1.52 billion, plus or minus $50 million, an increase of approximately 19% sequentially and a decrease of approximately 13% year-over-year.
The sequential Q2 increase is expected to be driven by growth across all businesses. The Q2 year-over-year decrease is expected to be primarily driven by lower graphics channel sales, negligible blockchain-related GPU revenue, and lower semi-custom revenue.
In Q1, the client processor average selling price (ASP) was up year-over-year, driven by Ryzen processor sales. Client ASP was down slightly quarter-over-quarter due to a decrease in mobile processor ASP.
The Q1 GPU ASP increased year-over-year primarily driven by data center GPU sales. GPU ASP was up sequentially driven by improved product mix.
The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue was $441 million, down 17% year-over-year and up 2% sequentially. The year-over-year revenue decrease was primarily due to lower semi-custom product revenue, partially offset by higher server sales. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily driven by higher semi-custom revenue.
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"AMD gained market share for 6th straight quarter, CEO says | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amd-gained-market-share-for-6th-straight-quarter-ceo-says"
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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 AMD gained market share for 6th straight quarter, CEO says Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Lisa Su, CEO of AMD.
Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said during her remarks on AMD’s first quarter earnings conference call with analysts today that she was confident about the state of competition with rivals like Intel and Nvidia in processors and graphics chips. She also pointed out that the company gained market share in processors for the 6th straight quarter.
AMD’s revenue was $1.27 billion for the first quarter, down 23% from the same quarter a year ago. But Su noted that Ryzen and Epyc processor and datacenter graphics processing units (GPUs) revenue more than doubled year-over-year, helping expand the gross margin by 5 percentage points.
If there was a lag in the quarter, it was due to softness in the graphics channel and lower semi-custom revenue (which includes game console chips).
Su said AMD’s unit shipments increased significantly and the company’s new products drove a higher client average selling price (ASP).
“As a result, we believe we gained unit market share for the sixth straight quarter,” Su said.
In the desktop channel, demand for AMD’s highest-end Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 CPUs was strong, Su said, adding that Ryzen mobile processor adoption continues to accelerate.
Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other computer makers have launched more than a dozen new Ryzen mobile notebooks so far in 2019, helping AMD deliver its fifth straight quarter of year-over-year mobile processor growth.
Su said customers are on track to increase the number of Ryzen notebook models by more than 50% from 2018. The majority of those new systems are scheduled to launch in the second quarter ahead of the seasonally stronger second half of the year.
Above: The AMD Radeon VII.
In graphics, revenue decreased year-over-year, driven largely by lower channel sales but partially offset by a significant increase in datacenter GPU sales.
Radeon Vega GPU shipments grew by a strong double-digit percentage, both year-over-year and sequentially, based on increased adoption across computer maker, gaming, and datacenter customers, Su said.
Apple introduced two new iMac systems featuring upgraded Radeon Pro Vega GPUs that deliver up to 80% faster graphics performance than the previous generation.
“We believe we made good progress improving channel inventory levels,” she said, regarding the pile of unsold graphics chips from previous quarters (related to the cryptocurrency bubble). “Sell-through accelerated sequentially, driven by sales of both our mainstream Radeon RX GPUs and new high-end Radeon VII gaming GPUs.” Su said AMD’s first 7-nanometer Navi gaming GPUs will debut in the third quarter. She also mentioned that cloud leader Amazon rolled out AMD-based offerings to additional regions and launched three new Epyc processor-powered EC2 instance families, including the first T3-series instances.
AMD is on track to begin production shipments of Rome (the latest Epyc datacenter processors) in the second quarter to support a third-quarter launch. Over time, as AMD fully rolls out its Epyc lineup, Su believes the company can hit double-digit market share.
The third-generation Ryzen desktop processors will ship later this year, with second-generation mobile Ryzen chips shipping as well. Those launches will help make the PC business a big driver for AMD, Su said.
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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"AMD CEO: Game-related chip sales should start growing in 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amd-ceo-game-related-chip-sales-should-start-growing-in-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 AMD CEO: Game-related chip sales should start growing in 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, holds an Epyc Rome server module.
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Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said that its semi-custom chip business — which includes game console chips — should start growing in 2020 and beyond, after taking a dip this year. That suggests that the ramp of the PlayStation 5 and other game console hardware should help AMD over time.
Su made the remarks in an analyst conference call for the company’s first-quarter earnings report, which slightly beat analyst expectations. AMD announced earlier this year that it is working with Sony on the processor for the PlayStation 5 game console that is expected to debut next year.
Santa Clara, California-based AMD is also making custom versions of its data center graphics processing units (GPUs) for the Google Stadia cloud-gaming platform. AMD is also refreshing its line of PC-oriented GPUs.
Su said AMD’s semi-custom business is likely to be down around 20% in 2019, with growth resuming in 2020 and beyond. Outside the game console space, Su said that AMD should see other semi-custom business as well.
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! Gross profit margins on the game console chips are lower than the average for overall AMD sales, Su said.
“We are honored that Sony has selected a custom AMD SOC based on our Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU architectures to power its next-generation PlayStation console,” Su 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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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 Managed Blockchain hits general availability | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amazon-managed-blockchain-hits-general-availability"
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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 Managed Blockchain hits general availability Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Amazon logo is seen at the Young Entrepreneurs fair in Paris 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 is in the blockchain business in a big way. Its Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service designed to help companies quickly set up blockchain networks of their own that are scalable and easy to create and manage. Originally announced at the company’s re:Invent event in late 2018, Amazon Managed Blockchain has been in preview for months. It’s now generally available, arriving first in northern Virginia before expanding to other regions over the course of the next year.
In a press release , Amazon told businesses that they “can quickly set up a blockchain network spanning multiple AWS accounts with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console,” doing away with what it describes as the typical cost and difficulty of creating a company network. AMB supports two frameworks — your business’ choice of Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric. The latter is the fruit of the combined labors of IBM and the Linux Foundation — part of the Hyperledger Project , which in turn is part of IBM Blockchain , a performance-as-a-service offering. Notably, Ethereum isn’t actually supported yet, but that’s also scheduled for later in the year.
In an email interview, an Amazon representative did not explain why Ethereum isn’t yet available, and he didn’t clarify when it would be, other than to repeat the press release’s “later this year” line. He did, however, delineate the respective advantages of Hyperledger Fabric versus Ethereum.
“Hyperledger Fabric is well-suited for applications that require stringent privacy and permission controls with a known set of members,” he said, using the example of a financial application in which sensitive information is shared only with select banks. He contrasted that with Ethereum’s use for situations where transparency for all members is key and a blockchain network needs to be highly distributed. “[An example would be] a customer loyalty blockchain network that allows any retailer in the network to independently verify a user’s activity across all members to redeem benefits. Alternatively, Ethereum can also be used for joining a public Ethereum blockchain network,” he said.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Customers simply choose their preferred framework, […] add network members, and configure the member nodes that process transaction requests. Amazon Managed Blockchain takes care of the rest, creating a blockchain network that can span multiple AWS accounts and configuring the software, security, and network settings,” Amazon’s press release reads.
The company said that AMB supports thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Amazon also provides its AMB customers with the Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) for when companies want to perform additional analysis.
Blockchain is often erroneously conflated with cryptocurrency. The association between the two is indeed close, but that’s because blockchain is the technology that allows crypto to function. On stage at the initial re:Invent announcement, an Amazon spokesperson said that before the company embarked on its AMB journey, Amazon had more closely examined what sort of business use cases businesses wanted from the technology. Amazon Managed Blockchain’s services and feature set is what emerged from those efforts.
An inherent tension seems to exist between the decentralized promise of blockchain and the — for lack of a better term — centralized nature of Amazon’s fully managed service. But an Amazon representative explained to VentureBeat via an email interview the various ways individuals maintain control.
“Each customer owns their own membership and has a copy of the data and has the ability to endorse a transaction (or not),” the representative said. “This gives all members in a network the ability to make decisions, achieve consensus, and have ownership.” He pointed out that what Amazon brings to the table is an assurance that applications “will be highly available, scalable, and fault tolerant.” He continued, “This allows customers to build enterprise-grade applications that leverage key properties of a blockchain on top of AWS’ industry-leading cloud infrastructure.” The membership drives scalability, up or down, and it gives the network some internal efficiency. “Consortiums can form without specific owners and all members need to decide who can join or be removed. This again ties into decentralization for enterprise applications,” he said. He used the example of trade chain that requires numerous parties across international boundaries. “Each stakeholder wants to independently verify the documentation related to the trade and doesn’t want any single entity to own the record of activity,” he said. “The current process requires trade-related paperwork (for example, a letter of credit) to go back and forth between the stakeholders, which can take five to 10 business days to complete.” But on a blockchain, each member in the trade process has a copy of the transaction ledger, and this is where smart contracts — enabled by blockchain technology — can smooth the process. “The business contract, such as a letter of credit, can be written as a smart contract in the blockchain application and can automatically execute as soon as all the parties provide a consensus to record the transaction,” he said.
There’s still no word on a timeline for further service rollouts, but pricing information is available on the Amazon Managed Blockchain page.
Update, 9:35 p.m. Pacific: Amazon replied to our questions after this article was originally published. We updated it with additional information and context.
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"7 startups present at BMW-backed accelerator Urban-X's 5th demo day | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/7-startups-present-at-bmw-backed-accelerator-urban-xs-5th-demo-day"
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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 7 startups present at BMW-backed accelerator Urban-X’s 5th demo day 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.
Urban-X , a startup accelerator backed by BMW’s Mini and urban tech venture fund Urban Us, today graduated its fifth cohort of startup companies at a demo day event held at its Brooklyn headquarters. The seven startups in this year’s class — all of which completed a five-month, 20-week program of product and business development with an in-house team of engineering, design, and business consultants — seek to tackle challenges like sustainable transportation, construction site productivity, harmful emissions produced by cooling and heating, waste management, and clothing waste with a combination of innovative hardware, internet of things (IoT), and software solutions.
Collectively, Urban-X and its investors pledged $100,000 per startup toward Cohort 5 or previous cohorts. Next year’s class will be the first to receive an increased investment of $150,000; it launches this summer with up to ten early-stage companies.
“Cohort 05 is an incredibly impressive group of creative and innovative entrepreneurs who are driven by a passion to improve our cities,” said Urban-X managing director Micah Kotch. “We’re excited to continue to support this group and see what comes next for these inspiring teams.” Here’s the full list of startups that presented at Urban-X’s fifth demo day: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Circuit (formerly The Free Ride): A short-range ride-sharing company that provides urbanites with free, sustainable transportation. It announced its expansion into Hollywood, Florida this morning through a partnership with the city and relaunched its service in Williamsburg, Brooklyn thanks to a brand collaboration with Runa. Circuit claims to be the only ride-sharing app with an all-electric fleet that transports customers for free, and it says it serves more than two million customers across 19 cities.
Borrow : A startup looking to bridge the gap between ownership and on-demand ride-sharing by providing short-term electric vehicle leasing. Its customers choose from one of several plans — Campus, City, Premium, or Platinum — and lease cars for up to nine months at a flat monthly rate that includes complimentary routine maintenance, roadside assistance, and charging credits.
Thrilling : A dedicated ecommerce platform for vintage and second-hand stores that aims to reduce carbon, waste, and water footprints. Thrilling claims that buying lightly used items of clothing can reduce waste impact by nearly 75%.
Treau : A company incubated by Otherlab , an independent research and development lab based in San Francisco, that’s designing advanced climate control systems to bring efficient cooling and heating to buildings.
GreenQ : A startup creating truck-based systems — including smart loader truckers, grapple trucks, stationary compactors, lifting cranes, and underground container fill level sensors — to improve diversion and recycling. Its sensors feed data to an analytics engine that recommends route-based, logistical improvements and optimizations in a cloud-based dashboard viewable from any device.
Toggle : A company building a process that leverages software and industrial robotics to reduce costs and accelerate construction projects, in part by automating fabrication, assembly, and other on-site tasks. It says its full-stack platform cuts labor costs by 50% and increases productivity by five times over traditional production methods.
Buildstream (formerly Gear Buddy): A startup tapping IoT and machine learning algorithms to digitize “every aspect” of heavy construction equipment (including bulldozers and trucks), enabling them to communicate in real time with site teams, self-diagnose maintenance issues, and optimize performance.
“We’re thrilled to work with this group of innovative entrepreneurs who are rethinking how technology can solve for complex issues that cities everywhere are facing,” said Mini’s VP of brand strategy and Innovation Esther Bahne of today’s demonstrations. “Mini’s investment in Urban-X builds on our commitment to agile innovation and provides a platform to inspire creativity and collaboration to build meaningful solutions that improve life in cities in unexpected ways.” Urban-X launched in 2016 as part of Mini’s innovation and strategy initiative focused on improving city life, and it now has 37 companies in its portfolio and counts over 2,000 partners in its extended investor and entrepreneurial network. The accelerator says that to date, 85% of its graduating companies have gone on to raise their next round of capital.
Urban-X is currently accepting applications for its next class of startups — Cohort 07 — which launches in winter 2019. Early-stage companies can apply until October 1, 2019.
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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"Microsoft releases Windows Vision Skills preview to streamline computer vision development | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/microsoft-releases-windows-vision-skills-preview-to-streamline-computer-vision-development"
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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 releases Windows Vision Skills preview to streamline computer vision development Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The segmentation skill in Microsoft's Windows Vision Skills kit.
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Computer vision is an exceedingly useful subfield of machine learning that’s been applied to everything from facial recognition to tuberculosis diagnosis, and Microsoft wants to streamline its deployment on Windows. The company today released a preview of Windows Vision Skills , a set of packages that enable a range of AI-driven photo and video analysis tasks.
Three prebuilt skills are available at launch: Object Detector, Skeletal Detector, and Emotion Recognizer.
“Implementing and integrating efficient machine learning and computer vision solutions is a hard task for developers. The industry is moving at a fast pace, and the amount of custom-tailored solutions coming out makes it strenuous for application developers to keep up,” wrote Microsoft developer writer Eliot Cowley in an article.
“The Windows Vision Skills framework is meant to make it easier to utilize computer vision. It standardizes the way computer vision modules are put to use within a Windows application, running on the local device.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Developers can add the skills — modular bits of code that process inputs and produce outputs — to any .NET, Win32, and UWP application courtesy out-of-the-box WinRT APIs that don’t require prior machine learning or computer vision knowledge to use. Meanwhile, computer vision developers can take advantage of hardware acceleration frameworks like DirectX and DirectML on Windows devices by packaging their solutions as skills.
Microsoft says that the Windows Vision Skills framework can be extended to work with existing machine learning frameworks and libraries such as OpenCV, and it says that skills can be pieced together within an application to address a complex scenario or bundled together in a single package.
Windows Vision Skills complements existing Windows support for inference of ONNX models by utilizing WinML for local inferencing. The framework allows you to build intelligent applications while leveraging platform optimization.
“Skills are strongly versioned to ease iteration without breaking existing applications,” said Cowley, “[and they’re] easy to ingest, easy to update, and they preserve intellectual property through licensing.” Microsoft isn’t the only company that’s made computer vision tools available in open source recently. Last week, Google debuted AI image segmentation models optimized for its Cloud TPU hardware platform, and in March, Intel made generally available CVAT , a toolkit for image data labeling. Last March saw the launch of Intel’s OpenVINO , a computer vision toolkit for edge computing that’s compatible with open source frameworks like Facebook’s Caffe2 and Google’s TensorFlow. And two years ago, Facebook rolled out a trio of tools for segmenting objects within images.
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.
All rights reserved.
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"Facebook Messenger bots can now book appointments | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebook-messenger-bots-can-now-book-appointments"
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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 Messenger bots can now book appointments Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook Messenger 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.
Facebook Messenger is launching appointment booking for the Messenger bot platform today. The feature will be available for Messenger’s 300,000 bots and could help spur bot adoption among the 40 million businesses currently using Messenger to speak with customers.
Appointment booking is now available in invite-only beta and will be made more widely available later this year. The news was announced at Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference today in San Jose, California.
Bots that make appointments can be reached directly in Messenger or in conversations that begin with a Facebook News Feed ad, Messenger home page ad , or via web chat plugin on an organization’s website.
From there prospective customers can book a time to visit a business or schedule appointments for things like volunteering, consultation, or other purposes.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! A lead-generation campaign template is also coming to Messenger bots for advertisers in the months ahead. The lead-generation template will be directly available in Facebook’s Ads Manager console.
Earlier today, Facebook announced group chat and video call video-watching parties , the launch of a Messenger desktop app, and continued plans to reduce the size of the Messenger mobile app.
“This means that some features may now be too large to fit our goal size, so we will be focusing our efforts on the most beloved features that Messenger has to offer,” the company said in a blog post today.
Though Facebook’s focused on reducing the size of Messenger — now the second all-time most downloaded app ever behind Facebook — the company recently added some new, simple additions like message threads in March and dark mode in April.
Since the launch of the Messenger Platform in 2016 , a number of improvements have been made including built-in natural language processing powered by Wit.ai , and handover protocol to relay messages from automated bots to humans.
In September 2017, Facebook announced Messenger has 1.3 billion monthly active users.
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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"Facebook brings WhatsApp video calls to Portal smart displays | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebook-brings-whatsapp-video-calls-to-portal-smart-displays"
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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 brings WhatsApp video calls to Portal smart displays 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.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced that its Portal smart displays will soon support WhatsApp video calls. All video calls will now come with end-to-end encryption.
“So now you can be sure that when you’re having a conversation with your friends and family everything stays between you,” Zuckerberg said onstage at Facebook’s F8 developer conference.
WhatsApp video calls will be available on Portal devices starting this fall, Facebook Portal head Ryan Cairns told VentureBeat.
The move brings WhatsApp, a chat app with more than one billion daily active users, to Facebook’s Portal smart display, which competes with Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Home Hub.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Portal and Portal +, Facebook’s first consumer device made in house, made their debut last October for Facebook Messenger video calls and interaction with Amazon’s Alexa.
Zuckerberg also said Portal will be available in more countries soon, with sales beginning in Canada in June and a number of European countries this fall.
A number of other updates were announced today for Portal as well, including plans to launch a Portal mobile app in the next few weeks that lets users add photos directly from phone to screen.
The idle screen that currently only flickers through Facebook friends photo updates starting today will support Instagram photos, and Storytime for reading to kids with augmented reality will get new characters soon like Pete the Cat.
You’ll also soon be able to say “Hey Portal, good morning” to get daily updates on friend activity, and the ability to send private video messages to friends, or launch Facebook Live.
Flash briefings, smart home control, and Amazon Prime video are also also coming to the Alexa experience with Portal.
Support for instant games and a web browser were added late last year.
At launch, Portal was limited in its access to virtually all Facebook offerings, and most notably still does not include Facebook Stories and WhatsApp Status, both of which have hundreds of millions of daily users.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this year that Facebook plans to combine and encrypt messages between Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp in the years ahead. With each garnering more than a billion monthly active users, they are three of the most-used messaging apps on Earth.
Zuckerberg spent the first minutes of the keynote address today at Facebook annual developer conference F8 discussing the future of privacy for social media, declaring “The future is private,” and that this future is reliant first and foremost on Facebook’s messaging apps.
Zuckerberg described features like Facebook and Instagram Stories as core to the evolution of the social media company toward smaller groups, private messaging, and more focus on Stories, which he characterizes as more ephemeral and privacy protected than public posts.
The news was announced today, alongside a redesigned Facebook and Facebook Messenger , new Oculus hardware , and new features for Instagram.
Other changes announced today likely to come to Portal include the ability to watch videos together with friends in group calls or chats with Facebook Messenger, as well as a Friends tab for the app that shows Stories from friends using other Facebook apps.
Portal users today can do things together during calls such as listen to Spotify music or read children’s stories with augmented reality special effects.
Privacy has become of particular concern at Facebook, a company that has repeatedly suffered self-inflicted wounds and failed to safeguard user data, such as by sharing the email contacts of 1.5 million users and exposing up to 600 million user passwords last month.
Additional changes could be on the way for Portal.
Earlier this month news emerged that Facebook is reportedly developing an AI assistant to take on Alexa and Google Assistant.
Any assistant will likely draw on lessons from Portal’s initial deployment; Facebook AI Research group, now in its fifth year; and AI the company uses today, such as PyText, Facebook’s main NLP model to fulfill billions of natural language tasks a day.
Updated 11:30 a.m. to include details about new Portal features.
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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"Daimler acquires majority stake in Torc Robotics to accelerate autonomous truck development | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/daimler-acquires-majority-stake-in-torc-robotics-to-accelerate-autonomous-truck-development"
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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 Daimler acquires majority stake in Torc Robotics to accelerate autonomous truck development Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Torc Robotics car 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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Daimler is betting big on autonomous trucks, as the German automotive giant today announced that its trucking division is buying a majority stake in self-driving vehicle company Torc Robotics.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2005 by a group of engineers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Torc Robotics initially focused on automated technologies across industries such as military, agriculture, mining, and automotive. In 2017, however, the Blacksburg, Virginia-based company put its decade-plus experience to work in the consumer realm with a new project aimed at bringing its self-driving technology to cars.
While the likes of Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber have garnered fanfare in the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry, Torc has quietly been building partnerships and readying its technology for commercial deployment on public roads. A few months back, for example, Torc teamed up with Transdev to build a fully autonomous shuttle platform, based on Torc’s level 4 self-driving software.
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: Torc and Transdev teamed up for autonomous shuttles.
Truck on Daimler may be best known as the company behind Mercedes-Benz cars, but it is one of the world’s biggest truck manufacturers by revenue. Moreover, Daimler has made no secret of its aspirations in the autonomous vehicle sphere.
Indeed, way back in 2014 Daimler unveiled its concept Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 , touted as a “transport system of the future” that drives entirely by itself.
Above: Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 Given their respective histories and experience, Daimler taking a majority stake in Torc Robotics makes a great deal of sense.
“Torc is not a startup, but one of the world’s most experienced companies for vehicle automation,” noted Roger Nielsen, CEO of Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA). “Torc takes a practical approach to commercialization and offers advanced, road-ready technology, plus years of experience in heavy vehicles.” Officially, it’s actually Daimler Trucks — a division that sits under the main Daimler Group umbrella — that is investing in Torc, but it did say that it would “leverage synergies” with Mercedes-Benz Cars to develop automated vehicle technologies.
This deal also builds on Daimler’s recent partnerships elsewhere in the self-driving vehicle space, as it entered into a long-term partnership with rival BMW just a couple of months back.
Separate Above: Daimler Trucks North America president and CEO Roger Nielsen with Torc CEO Michael Fleming.
Though this latest deal could be construed as an outright acquisition, the duo are keen to note that Torc won’t be completely absorbed into Daimler — Torc will retain its name, staff, customers, facilities, and so on. For all intents and purposes, it will remain a separate entity, but it will now have the financial backing and network reach of one of the world’s biggest automotive companies. And Torc’s engineers will work closely with Daimler Trucks’ research and development (R&D) unit in North America.
“Bringing Torc Robotics within the Daimler Trucks family creates a unique and powerful team of innovators to put highly automated trucks on the road,” added Daimler board member Martin Daum. “Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics complement each other perfectly in terms of resources, expertise, and skill sets. We are forming the ideal combination between Torc’s expertise on agile software development and our experience in delivering reliable and safe truck hardware.” Autonomous cars promise to transform the future of urban transport, but that day could still be some way off. First, we’re likely to see industry-specific applications of the technology, and trucks are an obvious starting point. A few months back, Volvo announced that its first commercial self-driving trucks will be used in mining , though it has also trialed self-steering trucks to help sugarcane farmers improve crop yield, and it has previously tested an autonomous garbage collection truck.
Elsewhere, driverless trucking startups continue to raise big VC rounds, with the likes of TuSimple recently raising $95 million at $1 billion valuation, and Ike — founded by former engineers from Apple, Google, and Uber — raising $52 million.
The trucking industry generates more than $700 billion in revenue in the U.S. alone, representing roughly 80 percent of all freight revenue in the country. And the more it can be automated and optimized , the bigger the market could become.
“With the ever rising demand for road transportation, not the least through ecommerce, there is a strong business case for self-driving trucks in the U.S. market, and I believe the fastest path to commercialization for self-driving trucks is in partnership with Daimler Trucks, the OEM market leader,” said Torc CEO Michael Fleming.
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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"Facebook wants to restrict certain users from broadcasting live | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-wants-to-restrict-certain-users-from-broadcasting-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 Facebook wants to restrict certain users from broadcasting live Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook: mobile app and website 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) — Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Friday the company was looking to place restrictions on who can go live on its platform based on certain criteria in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre.
The company will monitor who can go “Live” on Facebook depending on factors such as prior community standard violations, Sandberg said in a blog post here.
A lone gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand on March 15, while livestreaming the massacre.
Facebook has identified more than 900 different videos showing portions of the 17-minutes of carnage and has used its existing artificial intelligence tools to identify and remove hate groups in Australia and New Zealand, the blog said.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Last week, the social networking giant said it removed 1.5 million videos globally that had footage of the New Zealand mosque attack in the first 24 hours after the attack.
Earlier this week, one of the main groups representing Muslims in France said it was suing Facebook and YouTube, accusing them of inciting violence by allowing the streaming of the video.
Facebook, the world’s largest social network with 2.7 billion users, has faced growing discontent over its approach to privacy and user data amid increasing concerns over its advertising practices.
(Reporting by Sayanti Chakraborty in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber) 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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"Facebook charged with racial discrimination in targeted housing ads | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-charged-with-racial-discrimination-in-targeted-housing-ads"
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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 charged with racial discrimination in targeted housing ads 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 ) — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) charged Facebook on Thursday with violating the Fair Housing Act, alleging that the company’s targeted advertising discriminated on the basis of race and color.
HUD said Facebook also restricted who could see housing-related ads based on national origin, religion, familial status, sex and disability.
Facebook said it was surprised by the decision and has been working with HUD to address its concerns and has taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination across its platforms.
The social media giant said last week it would create a new advertising portal for ads linked to housing and employment that would limit targeting options for advertisers.
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.” The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing and related services, which includes online advertisements, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status.
( Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty ) 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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"Microsoft rescued Minecraft from Notch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/microsoft-rescued-minecraft-from-notch"
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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 rescued Minecraft from Notch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Tearing down Notch.
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Minecraft is still one of the most popular games in the world.
It has 91 million monthly active players , according to Microsoft. And now The Minecraft Team is working to ensure the game doesn’t open with any references to its old creator, Markus “Notch” Persson.
In the latest update to Minecraft, the game will no longer say “Made by Notch!” or “The Work Of Notch!” when you first boot up the game. Other messages will continue to show up randomly when you’re loading into the block-building phenomenon. But any reference to Persson is gone from that splash screen.
But this isn’t Microsoft trying to erase Notch’s contributions from the game. His name still shows up in the credits. But Microsoft no longer seems interested in celebrating him, either. While that may have more to do with establishing Microsoft as the sole owner and operator of Minecraft, it seems likely that the company does not want to associate with Notch’s edgelord shitposting behavior.
Microsoft deserves the credit for saving Minecraft from its creator Microsoft purchased Minecraft and developer Mojang from Notch for $2.5 billion in 2014. Since then, Microsoft has worked to transition the game into a live service with cross platform capabilities and a thriving, community-supported marketplace.
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! Notch, meanwhile, has turned into a lonely, bizarre internet creep. Despite having billions of dollars and a Beverly Hill mansion with towering candy dispensers all along one of its walls, he spends time trying to provoke people on Twitter.
He regularly makes bigoted remarks and claims to believe in conspiracy theories like QAnon, which isn’t worth explaining. It’s likely that he doesn’t care about what he’s actually saying. He just wants to trigger snowflakes.
And that is the person that Microsoft saved Minecraft from. Notch released Minecraft 10 years ago, but it’s still most popular among young kids. When children grow interested in the game, it’s inevitable that some will want to learn who is making it.
One option is to tell children that it is like a holy text that came to us from aliens.
son: this minecraft game is great dad dad: it is indeed son son: who made it? dad: no one. it came from space — ⣝⣵⡎⣵⢗⣿⣫⢗⡎⣵ (@zarawesome) December 6, 2018 But Microsoft is solving this by taking ownership over Minecraft on a cultural level.
Microsoft is the company that released the Xbox One Adaptive Controller to make games more accessible for disabled people. And now it’s the company that is tearing Notch out of Minecraft while continually building the game up. In the decades to come, Microsoft will get the credit for establishing Minecraft as a time-tested pop-culture icon.
And as a parent, that is such a relief.
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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"Borderlands 3 trailers reveal more-derlands | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/borderlands-3-trailers-reveals-more-derlands"
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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 Borderlands 3 trailers reveal more-derlands 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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Developer Gearbox finally revealed Borderlands 3 today. During a panel presentation at PAX East in Boston that involved stage magic and technical difficulties, the studio showed a 4K trailer for sequel to its breakout looter shooter.
Gearbox did not provide a release date, but it did promise that it would share more on April 3.
The trailer, however, did give a good look at what players should expect. It once again features a new cast of playable heroes for its four-player cooperative action. But this still looks like a Borderlands game.
The studio is sticking with the series’ cel-shaded visual style. It is also promising over 1 billion procedurally generated guns.
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! More-derlands — get it? But it’s not necessarily a bad thing that Boderlands 3 is more Borderlands. The shoot-and-loot genre is now dominated by huge, ongoing live service games. Destiny 2, The Division 2, and Anthem are all ongoing and want players to return regularly.
Borderlands originally debuted before that business model, and it’s possible that Borderlands 3 may try to stick to that. For players looking to get into and out of a game with a definitive ending, Borderlands 3 could deliver an oasis from our live-services future.
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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"All of Google's jokes for April Fools' Day 2019 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/offbeat/all-of-googles-jokes-for-april-fools-day-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 All of Google’s jokes for April Fools’ Day 2019 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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April Fools’ Day is upon us, and while companies like Microsoft have told their employees not to participate, Google is as always trying to outdo itself. The company releases all sorts of jokes, ranging from the ridiculously lame to the very clever, from a simple blog post or video to an elaborate gag or new feature. It’s a very Google-specific tradition — even other Alphabet companies don’t really participate in the celebration.
Google’s various divisions create more practical and impractical jokes for the holiday than any other tech firm (although the overall number seems to be decreasing), and it’s simply hard to keep track of them all. As such, we have put together our annual roundup — here are all of Google’s April Fools jokes for 2019. (If you’re curious how it compares to previous years, see our roundups for 2018 , 2017 , 2016 , and 2015.
) Snake in Google Maps The Google Maps team tends to have more intricate jokes — usually playable games — and this year it’s a spinoff of the classic Snake.
You can play Snake in Google Maps in different locations across the world, including Cairo, London, San Francisco, São Paulo, Sydney, and Tokyo. To play, open the Google Maps app for Android or iOS, tap on the menu icon on the top left corner, and hit “Play Snake.” Pick a city, grab as many passengers as you can, and make sure not to hit anything. Snake on Google Maps will be live in the app for about a week, and it even has a standalone site that Google says will stay up “long after April Foolsss is over.” 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! Google Calendar Space Invaders Google Calendar also has a new game, this one à la Space Invaders. You can launch it by clicking on the gear icon and choosing “Play a game” — note that this option isn’t available to G Suite users. You’ll get the following warning before you start to play: The game you’re about to play teaches you how to clear your schedule. Clear your meetings one by one with laser sharp precision.
Be careful. Don’t let any events reach the bottom or you’ll lose the game.
Move the mouse or use the arrow keys to position yourself.
Click or press space to blast the laser.
This game produces sound.
Blast your meetings away to hit a high score. Your schedule becomes busier and busier as you advance to later levels.
Introducing a new way to clear your schedule https://t.co/O4rxLFonaR ↓ pic.twitter.com/WSSpfxzamB — Google Calendar (@googlecalendar) April 1, 2019 Gboard Spoon Bending Version Google Japan always has a gag or two up its sleeve, as well. This year, the team has added to the Gboard keyboard app with a new device that provides a more comfortable character input environment. The Gboard spoon bending version is all about flexibility: You input characters by bending a spoon. All you have to do is connect the Gboard spoon bending version to your smartphone or computer, bend the spoon, and the corresponding letter to that angle is entered. The less you bend, the closer you are to the beginning to the alphabet, and the more you bend, the closer you are to the end. Even more intriguing, if you bend the spoon with your mind, you’ll enter more characters. The team has released designs, schematics, firmware, and so on, so you can even use a home 3D printer to build your home.
Google Tulip Your Google Home can now talk to tulips (“Hey Google, talk to my tulip.”), thanks to “great advancements in artificial intelligence.” Translation between Tulipish and dozens of human languages means you can finally talk to tulips — they’ll tell you when they need water, light, or more space. Apparently, tulips are not only very chatty, they’re also great listeners and offer “sound advice.” Google Tulip was largely developed in the Netherlands, a country that produces 12.5 billion flowers a year, and tested in the world-famous flower park Keukenhof. As for the AI part, Google and the Wageningen University & Research team built on Neural Machine Translation to map tulip signals to human language. It took two years of training to add Tulipish as a language to Google Home’s recently introduced Interpreter Mode.
Screen Cleaner in the Files app The Files by Google app for Android is no longer just an app. Instead of merely cleaning your device on the inside, the app now offers a “Screen cleaner” feature that can “wash away smudges and polish your screen.” It uses the Smudge Detector API to identify imperfections using geometric dirt models and a haptic micromovement generator to dislodge dirt, smudges, and more. In fact, once your device is clean, the feature uses internal vibrations and haptic controls to form a “long-lasting, non-stick shield” using a thin magnetic field, complete with a pineapple scent.
Google Fi now works in the Atlantic Ocean No, not just on the Atlantic Ocean. Google Fi now works at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Who is Google to judge where you need cellular service? You’ll feel a ~wave~ of emotions about this news—you’re now covered on Fi at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. 🌊 pic.twitter.com/da34B5LDEh — Google Fi (@googlefi) April 1, 2019 Google Colab Power Mode Google Colab introduced a Power Mode that lets you “rack up combos and see sparks fly.” Power Mode causes sparks to fly out from the cursor when you are typing and shows an animated “combo counter.” This is one of the lamer gags this year.
Power Mode is now live in Colab – rack up combos and see sparks fly. Happy April 1st! pic.twitter.com/rh9oqSc1hi — Colaboratory (@GoogleColab) April 1, 2019 Google Assistant In previous years, if you asked Google Assistant about April Fools’ on the day, it would respond with something along the lines of “We can get through April Fools’ together. Here’s one thing to remember. If something seems too good to be true today, it probably is.” This year, it just spits out historical pranks like this one: Just say “April Fools'” to Google Assistant and it will keep spitting out other examples.
Waymo Pet The Alphabet rule is broken every once in a while by Waymo. Why do humans get to have all the self-driving car fun? Pets have places to go, too, and they don’t want to deal with the hassle of driving either. Waymo has redesigned the driving experience for pets, including a custom laser show for cats, a cooling system for hamsters, and so on.
When it comes to April Fools’ Day, Google seems to have a bottomless pit for a marketing budget. Will 2019 be the same as previous years? We will update this post as the company launches more jokes.
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.
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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"Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G pricing puts an early 5G fear to rest | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/samsungs-galaxy-s10-5g-pricing-puts-an-early-5g-fear-to-rest"
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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 Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G pricing puts an early 5G fear to rest Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg announces Samsung's Galaxy S10 5G is coming first to his 5G network.
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As device makers and carriers prepared to announce the first 5G smartphones, there were reasons for concern: Early prototypes looked thick and carried the risk of crazy pricing. When Samsung announced the 7.94-millimeter thick Galaxy S10 5G and foldable Galaxy Fold last month, it demonstrated that 5G devices wouldn’t necessarily be thicker, but it left the pricing question open. Would users have to pay $1,500 or more for a 5G smartphone? Mercifully, the answer is no — though that doesn’t mean they’ll be cheap, either. South Korea’s ETNews reports that Samsung has priced the 256GB version of the Galaxy S10 5G at 1.39 million won, roughly equivalent to $1,200, or around $100 less than the entry price forecast last week by “industry sources.” The 512GB model will reportedly sell for 1.55 million won, close to $1,350.
While $1,200 is still a lot of money for any smartphone, that establishes a $200 pricing delta between Samsung’s Galaxy S10+ and S10 5G models, not all of which is attributable to the cutting-edge 5G hardware inside the latter device. The S10 5G also includes a larger screen, bigger battery, and extra camera, plus front and rear 3D depth-sensing camera capabilities. All of those premium features suggest that Samsung could have added 5G capabilities alone to the S10+ for half or less of that $200 premium.
Samsung’s 5G premium mirrors that of OnePlus, which said last year that it planned to limit the 5G premium to $200 or $300 over prior $550 models. Though the smaller rival hasn’t officially announced the price of its first 5G phone yet, it has built a business on aggressively priced phones, and at $750 would be able to compete directly with near-flagship 4G devices such as Apple’s iPhone XR. Other device makers are likely to price their phones higher than OnePlus.
For Samsung, the closest competitor on features and price will be Apple’s iPhone XS Max , which costs $1,249 with the same 256GB storage capacity as the S10 5G, but has fewer cameras and no 5G functionality. As such, it will be interesting to see whether Samsung is able to take on its most popular competitor by including the latest rather than last-generation cellular technology — a key reason we advised holding off on the XS Max last year.
Since the rest of the Galaxy S10 series has reportedly been outperforming sales expectations, the S10 5G may follow suit, assuming there are enough customers near early 5G networks to take advantage of its capabilities. Sales of the new phone are expected to commence on April 5 in South Korea , where parts of dozens of cities will offer mobile 5G access, followed by a U.S. launch on Verizon, which will commence mobile 5G in two cities after a four-city 5G home broadband launch last year.
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"Outlook's new AI features help you plan for meetings | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/outlooks-new-features-help-you-prep-for-meetings-recommend-meeting-places-and-times"
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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 Outlook’s new AI features help you plan for meetings Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Outlook.
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Microsoft today announced that it is beefing up Outlook with new AI-driven features. In the next few weeks (in North America in English), it will roll out a trio of features in Outlook on the web to expedite meeting prep, intelligently suggest meetings, and recommending meeting venues — all powered by the new framework announced last September.
“You’ve heard Office has been adding intelligent technology across the suite to help you stay ahead of threats and keep you in the flow of work,” product marketing manager Gabriel Valdez Malpartida wrote in a blog post. “We’ve also been working in Outlook to deliver intelligence that will help you stay organized and get things done.” First on the list is Meeting Insights.
On the eve of your next meeting, Outlook — leveraging Microsoft Graph, a developer platform that connects multiple services, devices, and products across Windows, Office 365, and Azure — will surface potentially relevant documents and notes. Post-meeting, it will organize files shared in emails, SharePoint, and OneDrive, along with messages exchanged about the meeting and content shared both during and afterward.
Above: Meeting insights.
“The information is uniquely tailored, so people who are in the same meeting will not necessarily see the same recommendations,” Malpartida said.
Next up is Suggested reply with a meeting , which builds on Outlook’s existing suggested replies feature. (For the uninitiated, that’s the handy tool that suggests three short, canned replies at the bottom of the compose window when you respond in a thread.) Now Outlook detects when people have an intent to meet and automatically bubbles up a Schedule a meeting option. Clicking on it pulls up a meeting form prepopulated with info.
Above: Suggested locations.
To enable Suggested replies (and by extension Suggested reply with a meeting ), head to the Settings menu within Outlook, then View all Outlook settings > Mail > Compose and reply.
Check the box next to Show suggested replies, select save, and you’re golden.
Lastly, there’s Smart time suggestions and Suggest locations.
The former suggests days and times when all attendees are free to meet, while the latter serves up meeting spots — like conference rooms or cafes — tailored to your preferences, along with those places’ addresses, hours, and contact information.
“We aim to bring you features that will make a difference, so some of these features will show up only in Outlook on the web while we gather data on them and evaluate whether to bring them to other Outlook endpoints,” Malpartida added. “We hope these features help you save time and get things done faster.” The updates follow on the heels of Microsoft’s refreshed Outlook for iOS, which features a new UI, app icon, and “sensory feedback.
Perhaps uncoincidentally, they also come days after Google brought AMP for Email project — an open source branch of its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project that promises more dynamic and web-like email experiences — into general availability.
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"C Spire attacks T-Mobile’s rural 5G plan as nebulous and implausible | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/c-spire-attacks-t-mobiles-rural-5g-plan-as-nebulous-and-implausible"
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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 C Spire attacks T-Mobile’s rural 5G plan as nebulous and implausible 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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As the sixth-largest U.S. cellular carrier, C Spire has only 1.2 million mostly rural customers, compared with the 127 million that a “New T-Mobile” would have after merging with Sprint , but that isn’t stopping the smaller company from opposing the merger. In a new filing with the FCC, C Spire says the larger carrier doesn’t have the infrastructure needed to actually deliver high-speed service to rural customers and is using “nebulous” promises of improvements to snow the commission into approving the deal.
Since C Spire only offers wireless service in parts of four states — Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee — it’s not exactly a household name across the U.S., where it was previously known as Cellular South. The Mississippi-based company operates largely within its home state, but it also has 700MHz and 1.7-2.2GHz licenses that could be used to expand its services to more of Tennessee and Alabama, much as T-Mobile has said it will do with 600MHz and 2.5GHz spectrum.
T-Mobile has pitched 600MHz radio towers as the ideal solution to the challenge of blanketing the U.S. with 5G coverage. Unlike rivals that have focused on deploying thousands of short-distance, high-speed millimeter wave small cells that require time-consuming city and town approvals, the “uncarrier” has said it will use long-distance, slower-speed 600MHz radios on taller towers that can cover hundreds of miles with 5G signals.
C Spire says the problem with T-Mobile’s pitch isn’t wireless spectrum, but rather the wired infrastructure — known as backhaul — needed to actually connect wireless towers and deliver high-speed service. Though T-Mobile told the FCC that it “future-proofed its backhaul” with scalable hardware and upgrade contracts, C Spire notes that the carrier hasn’t provided any details: no timetable, copies of contracts, or specific rural buildout commitments. “T-Mobile has a long record of providing inadequate coverage in rural America,” C Spire contends, adding that T-Mobile now faces “the challenging economics of doing a green field build in rural areas where the availability and cost of backhaul present severe limitations.” The complaint might sound like sour grapes, but C Spire’s underlying point is simple: Major carriers have promised and failed for years to deliver high-speed internet access to rural customers, and another round of soft promises to take on an expensive, low-yield project probably won’t change the status quo. There’s no shortage of talk about offering 5G to rural customers (see: U.S. Cellular , Charter , and Cisco ), but without concrete plans and the wired backhaul to deliver service, it’s just that — talk.
That said, the risk of losing out on FCC merger approval could force T-Mobile’s hand. And if C Spire does succeed in forcing its much larger rival to commit to more specific timetables and contracts for improving rural service, the southern carrier may be guaranteeing that its own services face their biggest challenge to date.
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"Apple cancels long-delayed AirPower charging mat | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-finally-launches-airpower-wireless-charging-mat"
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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 cancels long-delayed AirPower charging mat Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AirPower was unveiled on September 12, 2017 and expected to ship in 2018. It disappeared from Apple's web site in September 2018, and Apple stopped commenting on its status.
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One and a half years after announcing a wireless charging mat for iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods called AirPower, Apple has unexpectedly canceled the accessory. It notably missed potential and expected shipping dates multiple times, including a seemingly likely release alongside the second-generation version of AirPods with a wireless charging case this week.
“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,” said Apple SVP of hardware engineering Dan Riccio in a statement today. “We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.” Originally revealed in September 2017 alongside the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus , and iPhone X , AirPower promised to simultaneously charge three devices at once — an iPhone, Apple Watch Series 3 or newer , and AirPods earphones with a then-unreleased wireless charging case. The hook was that users could lay each Apple device anywhere on a plain white surface without worrying about positioning; Apple said it had developed a proprietary variant on Qi inductive charging that could locate devices and send them the correct levels of power to match their needs.
Apple never confirmed a specific price or date for AirPower, saying only that it would arrive in 2018. Price tags ranging from $99 to $199 were floated by analysts but never confirmed by the company, as March, September, and end-of-year release opportunities passed without any announcement. Last year, Apple unusually removed virtually every reference to the device from its marketing materials.
Behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt hinted that the release was delayed due to various charging issues , including Apple Watch-specific challenges and potentially long-term reliability of the entire charging system. Twenty-two separate charging coils were intended to be used in the system to facilitate “anywhere” placement of devices, increasing the potential for overheating.
But following a supply chain report that Apple was still working on AirPower and hints that iOS 12.2 had finally added support for it, the problems appeared to have been overcome. Just last week, the company secured trademark rights to the AirPower name, eliminating a legal issue that might have explained some of the delays and the scrubbing of Apple’s site.
Apple’s decision to cancel AirPower at such a late stage is unprecedented. Though the company’s website remains bare of AirPower references, the accessory’s name and/or image were featured on boxes of second-generation AirPods wireless charging cases delivered this week, though the boxes notably included 2018 dates.
A last-minute “no” to shipping makes clear that the company would sooner suffer the modest issues related to releasing nothing at all than the serious problems that might follow if paying users received and had trouble with the device.
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"Wikimedia finally joins W3C | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/media/wikimedia-finally-joins-w3c"
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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 Wikimedia finally joins W3C 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 what can only be described as a win for open standards, the Wikimedia Foundation — the San Francisco-based nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and dozens of related community projects — today announced that it’s joining the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the leading international standards organization for the World Wide Web. In a blog post published this morning, senior software engineer Gilles Dubuc says its work with W3C will principally entail providing feedback, attending meetings, participating in standards’ designs, and performing “some of the technical work necessary to put [them] together.” “We are pleased to welcome the Wikimedia Foundation among our membership,” said W3C global business development leader Alan Bird. “With their … interests in so many of the areas we advance on the web, we anticipate that the Wikimedia Foundation’s participation will be key in building the services and structures that enable web users.” The move, Dubuc points out, aligns with the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2030 strategy outlined last October, which calls on the organization to “become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge.” Web technologies and standards are necessarily a part of this — the W3C, which was founded in 1994 by tech luminary Tim Berners-Lee, comprises over 476 members working together to ensure consistency across browsers and platforms.
Agreed-upon, vendor-agnostic standards like HTML, CSS, and XML play a vital role in facilitating “knowledge equity,” Dubuc says.
“To achieve our vision, we need to participate and collaborate in designing the future of the web,” he added. “We’re going to contribute to shaping a future of the web that helps everyone create and share free knowledge.” So what changes might result in the near term? Probably few. As one of my colleagues noted, though, the markup language in Wikipedia’s MediaWiki software — Wikitext, also known as Wikicode — uses some HTML elements but isn’t web-standard. Perhaps that’ll change down the line.
Wikipedia, which was visited over 190 billion times last year, currently offers its database of articles in about 300 languages. It plans to grow that number through a partnership with Google revealed in January , which will see the number of dialects supported by its content translation tool expand from 106 to 121 total with the integration of Google Translate.
In a tangentially related development late last year, Facebook pledged over $1 million to the Wikimedia Endowment, the fund founded in 2016 that financially supports Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, following in the footsteps of tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Adobe, Google, and Netflix. The foundation’s initial goal was to raise $100 million; to date, it has raised just under $50 million.
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4,670 | 2,019 |
"Global video streaming market is largely controlled by the usual suspects | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/media/global-video-streaming-market-is-largely-controlled-by-the-usual-suspects"
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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 Global video streaming market is largely controlled by the usual suspects 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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Weeks after Steven Spielberg took a swing at Netflix and Hulu , the Hollywood legend had a change of heart about the medium, appearing at Apple’s star-studded event to help the iPhone-maker launch a streaming service.
The embrace comes as people are increasingly cutting their cable connections and moving to streaming services for their entertainment needs. Just last week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade body that represents major Hollywood studios and Netflix, reported (PDF) that video streaming services now have more subscribers worldwide (613.3 million users) than those with a cable connection (some 556 million users).
Another disruption is nigh. Revenue generated by streaming services is set to surpass worldwide theatrical revenue this year, according to research firm Ampere Analysis. Media and technology companies are naturally fighting for a piece of that pie. The overcrowded video streaming market — valued at $22.6 billion last year and estimated to grow to $30.6 billion by 2022, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers — has more than 100 players competing for users’ attention.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest rivals, the markets they operate in, and how they are trying to win customers.
American giants eyeing the world At the top of the list is Netflix, which began offering a streaming service in 2007, long before most companies even considered getting in the ring. This gave Netflix enough breathing room to bulk up its content catalog through licensing deals with cable networks and content studios. Twelve years later, Netflix has amassed 139 million subscribers in over 190 nations and territories.
Following in Netflix’s footsteps is Amazon, which has also made its Prime Video streaming service available in over 190 nations and territories. Amazon has never disclosed how many users subscribe to Prime Video, but last April the company said more than 100 million people use its umbrella subscription Prime , which bundles a range of services, including fast delivery of goods and Prime Video.
In the U.S., Netflix and Amazon also compete with Hulu, HBO, Starz, Showtime, CBS All Access, and Viacom’s Noggin — to name just a few. Hulu, which is only available in the U.S. and Japan, offers movies and shows, as well as access to some TV channels. The company said in January that it has reached 25 million subscribers. (Apple says it will make Apple TV+, the streaming service it announced this week, available in over 100 countries, though it didn’t offer content or pricing details.) Cable giant HBO offers customers in the U.S. access to its original movies and shows such as Game of Thrones and Westworld through its HBO Now streaming service. HBO Now also includes content from sister companies Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures. As of early last year, the service had 5 million subscribers.
Other players, such as CBS All Access, are relatively new in the market and have yet to gain significant traction.
Then there is YouTube, which people spend an awful lot of time watching.
The Google-owned service is increasingly targeting on-demand video streaming users by adding movies to its catalog and slowly expanding the reach of YouTube Premium — a subscription service that gives users access to exclusive content and an ad-free experience — to more markets.
While YouTube is the most-consumed video streaming app in most markets, Netflix is leading in revenue worldwide. As of 2018, Netflix generated more revenue than any other video streaming service — and in some cases, more than any app in any category — in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the U.K., the U.S., and Vietnam, among other markets, according to App Annie.
Content Much of the content on YouTube is generated by users, while most other streaming services are populated with movies and shows licensed from Hollywood studios and cable networks. This also means that your favorite movies and TV shows are typically playing a game of musical chairs , moving from one platform to another every few months — unless someone decides to pay a huge chunk to retain a title longer.
To differentiate their services, companies have recently been investing billions of dollars in producing original content. Netflix, which continues to produce critically acclaimed movies and shows, such as Emmy-winners The Crown and House of Cards , spent $8.9 billion in original programming in 2017 and $12.04 billion in 2018. The company says it remains bullish on producing original shows and movies for most of the markets where it operates.
Amazon, too, is increasingly coughing up big bucks to ramp up its original catalog. According to one analysis, Amazon is estimated to spend more than $6 billion in original programming this year. One of its original shows, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , won several Emmys and Golden Globes. Amazon Studios is currently working on a multi-season, big-budget TV adaptation of The Lord of the Rings fantasy series.
Pricing strategy Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO charge U.S. consumers between $8 and $11 a month for their streaming services. But these services are increasingly exploring new pricing structures to attract more customers. Hulu, for instance, offered consumers a 12-month subscription at a dollar per month rate during Black Friday last year. The company recently inked a deal with Spotify to offer customers access to both services for $9.99. (And it isn’t the first time the two have explored such an arrangement.) For at least the past four months, Netflix has been experimenting with lower-priced subscriptions in select markets, such as Malaysia and India. The test subscription, which limits usage to mobile devices and content to standard definition (480p), costs as little as $3 a month. A Netflix spokesperson earlier this month declined to share an update on the kind of reception this test has received.
Amazon offered its Prime Video subscription at a discounted price to Prime subscribers in most markets for an extended period of time when it launched the service in December 2016.
Since then, the company has been fairly aggressive with pricing in developing markets. In India, for instance, a Prime subscription is $14.50 a year, including access to Prime Video and Prime Music.
In several markets, over-the-top (OTT) companies have also inked deals with telecom companies and other service providers to subsidize the cost of their service.
Above: Image: App Annie Europe In the U.K., the BBC and iTV are working to launch BritBox.
Executives say that when the service launches, it will offer the largest catalog of British content on any platform. A version of BritBox already exists in the U.S.
, with over 500,000 subscribers.
iTV Player, a video streaming service from the network giant, was among the video apps with the most consumer spending in the U.K. in 2018, according to App Annie. More streaming services are in the works. Last year, Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 partnered with Discovery’ Eurosport network to work on a new streaming service. In Meanwhile, French broadcasters France Télévisions and M6 et TF1 are working on Salto streaming service.
Mubi offers art movies in several European markets and had over 100,000 subscribers at the end of 2017.
DAFilms , which charges 6 euros ($6.80) a month, offers over 1,700 movies and documentaries.
Africa In Africa, four-year-old Naspers-backed Showmax has more than 25,000 movies and TV episodes, including some from HBO, ABC, and Showtime.
IrokoTV offers Nollywood content, and late last year South African soccer legend Jomo Sono, who runs Infinivy SA, launched TV2GO , a new ad-supported on-demand video streaming service with over 100 channels and a range of movies.
Asia In Middle Eastern markets, OSN Wavo , a legacy pay-TV provider, offers a large catalog of movies and shows, including some from Disney and HBO.
Starz Play includes more than 10,000 hours of content with Arabic subtitles. Icflix, which was launched in 2013, features Hollywood and Bollywood movies.
Speaking of Bollywood, Rupert Murdoch’s Star India dominates the $700 million Indian video streaming market.
The Walt Disney subsidiary offers more than 80 percent of its catalog free (monetizing via ads) and has leveraged the nation’s strong interest in cricket. Hotstar has also nabbed exclusive rights to show several Showtime and HBO shows in India. India’s video streaming market is becoming increasingly crowded, with over three dozen players vying for attention.
That leaves us with China. Chinese internet conglomerates Tencent and Baidu lead the market with Tencent Video and iQiyi, respectively. Both services are ad-supported and each has amassed over 500 million monthly active users. Tencent Video is estimated to have 89 million paid subscribers, putting it slightly ahead of iQiyi’s 87 million paid subscribers. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are not available in China. Earlier this month, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he does not expect the Chinese market to become more hospitable anytime soon.
Upcoming challenges Companies are hoping that original programming will help them gain an edge over the competition, but research suggests that people are actually spending much of their time watching a small number of old shows. In the coming quarters, as more players enter the market, we will find out whether new original programming or old classics are actually more lucrative. Furthermore, as the list of streaming services grows, so does consumer app fatigue. Research suggests that users are growing increasingly frustrated with the number of streaming services they need to pay for to get all the content they want. This also means the early adoption many services are seeing today could be difficult to sustain. And finally, we have yet to learn exactly how Apple, with hundreds of billions of dollars sitting in its bank, intends to make its mark.
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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4,671 | 2,019 |
"Apple ends Texture on May 28 without News+ apps for Android or Fire HD | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/media/apple-ends-texture-on-may-28-without-news-apps-for-android-or-fire-hd"
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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 ends Texture on May 28 without News+ apps for Android or Fire HD 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.
Slightly more than a year after acquiring the digital magazine subscription service Texture , Apple is unsurprisingly shutting it down in favor of its recently announced replacement, Apple News+ — but it’s leaving former Android and Amazon Fire HD subscribers without service.
Texture’s final day will be May 28, 2019, after which subscribers are encouraged to transition to the News+ service. Apple News+ promises access to 300 magazines and newspapers, up from Texture’s 200 magazines, plus full reading rights for multiple relatives using Apple’s iCloud Family Sharing feature. A free one-month trial is offered to all News+ users, with no special privileges for former Texture subscribers.
But the newer service is compatible solely with iOS and macOS devices running the free Apple News app. By comparison, Texture’s app is available for iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire HD tablet users. Apple hasn’t said anything about plans to bring News+ to competing devices, even though it devoted a portion of its Show Time media event on Monday to extending its iTunes and Apple TV offerings to competitors’ TVs and video streaming devices — notably omitting Google’s Android platform.
Apart from potentially needing to switch devices to continue using the all-you-can-read magazine service, there’s no additional charge to move from Texture to Apple News+. Both services carry $9.99 monthly fees for unlimited iOS and macOS use, which began on Monday.
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"The RetroBeat: Mega Man 3 makes for an incredible live soundtrack performance via Bit Brigade | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/the-retrobeat-mega-man-3-makes-for-an-incredible-live-soundtrack-performance-via-bit-brigade"
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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 RetroBeat: Mega Man 3 makes for an incredible live soundtrack performance via Bit Brigade Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Mega Man also had a robot dog.
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I love living in Ohio, but it isn’t exactly an epicenter of the gaming world. So I was surprised when my friend in Cleveland told me that a band would be playing Mega Man 3 ‘s soundtrack in a bar that is within walking distance of his apartment.
Not only that, but they would have someone speedrunnning the game live. The band, Bit Brigade , would provide the classic sidescroller’s music themselves as the player, Noah McCarthy, stomped his way through evil robots and Dr. Wily.
Mega Man 3 is my favorite video game of all time. I had to go to this show. It was more spectacular than I could have imagined. Bit Brigade provided faithful and high-energy metal renditions of Mega Man 3’s iconic soundtrack, and McCarthy was a skilled player that beat the game quickly and without dying. He did all of this in front of an audience while sitting 3 feet away from the band’s drums.
Starting with a Contra pun McCarthy has known Bit Brigade’s members since they all went to college at the University of Georgia around 15 years ago. Many of them were in different bands, but they wanted to start a project called Contra Band, where they would play the soundtrack from Konami’s classic run-‘n’-gun shooter for the NES.
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! “Bryant, the guitarist, called me up and said, ‘Hey, you want to play Contra with a band?’ I learned Contra and we started doing it. We’ve doing different games ever since,” McCarthy told GamesBeat.
Bit Brigade has focused on NES classic, performing the soundtracks for Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and Ninja Gaiden. They also did Mega Man 2.
“People have been asking us to do Mega Man 3 ever since we did Mega Man 2 for the first time, which was about 14 years ago,” McCarthy told GamesBeat. “That’s why we’re doing 3 now.” But Bit Brigade’s performance still finds a way to sneak iconic Mega Man 2 tracks into the Mega Man 3 show. Mega Man 3 has players fighting the bosses from its predecessors about halfway through. Bit Brigade uses this opportunity to perform each boss’s stage music.
Above: Bit Brigade and Noah McCarthy performing Mega Man 3. Also, some guy’s head. Look, I’m a writer, not a photographer.
Mega Man 3+ Even McCarthy’s performance of playing the game has some surprises. He’s actually playing a fan-enhanced version of Mega Man 3 that reduces the game’s notorious slowdown problems and adds some other surprises. The ROM hack’s name is Mega Man 3 Improvement.
“These awesome nerds were like, ‘Mega Man 3 is a very poorly programmed game. It has lots of graphical glitches and tons of slowdown.’ Tons! Every single stage,” McCarthy told GamesBeat. “They actually went in and fixed all that stuff, and added in sprites, unused sprites. They added the intro as well. They took the story that’s in the instruction booklet and added some graphics and things like that. But everything else is just the game, pretty straightforward, with improvements. It’s significantly more reliable for me to play.” McCarthy isn’t speedrunning to break records. He’s part of a performance. He’ll sometimes even purposely slow down so that the band has more time to play a song.
Both elements, the speedrun and the music, created an incredible show. For a retro gamer and giant Mega Man 3 fan like me, it was a thrill.
Bit Brigade is continuing its Mega Man 3 tour around the country, and you can find dates on their website.
You can also buy their albums — available digitally, on CD, and some even on vinyl — here.
The RetroBeat is a weekly column that looks at gaming’s past, diving into classics, new retro titles, or looking at how old favorites — and their design techniques — inspire today’s market and experiences. If you have any retro-themed projects or scoops you’d like to send my way, please contact me.
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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"Scape uses your phone for geo-located AR | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/scape-uses-your-phone-for-geo-located-ar"
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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 Scape uses your phone for geo-located AR Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Scape 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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We may all be looking forward to the day HoloLens and Magic Leap are affordable, but smartphone AR still has plenty of room to grow. UK-based Scape technologies is still exploring those possibilities with its new platform.
Scape is powering geo-located AR. Think Pokémon Go but, instead of a GPS-based system, Scape uses images captured on your phone’s camera to determine where you are. Using the ScapeKit SDK, developers can create permanent AR stamps in the real world. In the case of Niantic’s popular mobile game, for example, you could specifically place a Pikachu on a street corner and anyone that walks past could try and catch it.
But this type of AR’s use stretches far beyond game. That’s why Scape recently put together its first hackathon. Developers were given three days to piece together new apps using ScapeKit. The community favorite spot went to Xrad. The group had an intriguing idea, using webVR to design virtual recreations of real-world environments where they could place preposed AR content. It could be used to virtually visualize and ad campaign, for example.
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! Inition, meanwhile, won the judge’s award. They had a handy idea for a drone delivery service app where the user could pick and visualize drone landing spots. Both teams took home £500. Othe ideas included a Bandersnatch-style game in which players chose a path through a narrative based on their location in the real world.
This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com.
Copyright 2019 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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"Robo Recall on Oculus Quest is a noticeable downgrade from Rift | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/robo-recall-on-oculus-quest-looks-like-a-downgrade-from-rift"
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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 Robo Recall on Oculus Quest is a noticeable downgrade from Rift Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Epic's Robo Recall is a funny shooter in VR.
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With the Oculus Quest launch just a couple months away as the “Spring 2019” timeframe inches ever-closer, we finally got a good taste of what all will be available on the headset at launch. We learned about Creed, Job Simulator, I Expect You To Die, Rec Room , VRChat , and many others. In addition to Beat Saber and Dead and Buried 2 from last week, it’s shaping up to be an impressive catalog of VR games.
We knew that Robo Recall was coming to Oculus Quest and we assumed that it would have to be a heavy downgrade, but seeing it in action for the first time was still a bit of a shock.
This link is timestamped to the exact moment Robo Recall is about to be shown in today’s sizzle reel video, but don’t blink because it’s only there for literally two seconds right after Superhot VR: 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! After seeing how similar Dead and Buried 2 looked and not noticing much difference at all while playing Beat Saber I was holding my breath for some development magic, but this is the first evidence we’ve seen that Epic’s intense tech demo that originally debuted on Rift was too much for the Quest to handle at full-scale. I’m assuming this won’t be the full game either and is probably an abbreviated version instead.
The decision to show only a single robot in the trailer, rather than a swarm, feels deliberate. When playing Robo Recall I can’t remember facing off against a single enemy very often to be honest. Usually you’re facing large numbers of enemies all at the same time. This calls into question not only the visual fidelity, but how many enemies it can handle at once as well.
We reached out to Epic Games and Oculus regarding the differences we noticed in the trailer above such as the downgraded visuals and lack of enemies on-screen and an Oculus spokesperson responded: “Robo Recall on Quest looks and feels great. There are—of course—differences graphically, but the gameplay is as satisfying as what you remember on Rift…now with no wires.” They also provided a single high-resolution screenshot directly from the game that is, reportedly, more in-line with the visuals you can expect to experience inside the headset itself. That’s the one embedded up above and included again here. Notably, the one single image they decided to officially send doesn’t have any enemies in it, so it’s hard to use it as a real frame of reference.
For comparison, we’ve included some additional images of the Quest version taken from the trailer embedded up above. Keep in mind that these likely don’t do the game actual justice and it will probably look much better inside the headset itself since the footage was encoded and optimized for YouTube. The footage in the video is also reportedly of an older build of the game that isn’t fully representative of the final product And here is a video of Robo Recall on Rift , plus screenshots taken from that video to try and show something similar rather than grabbing doctored up marketing photos. However, keep in mind, these are still higher-quality by nature.
What do you think? Robo Recall should still be free on Quest and will undoubtedly maintain the fast, frenetic, and fun gameplay of its older, bigger PC-based ancestor, but it does appear to have gone through a hefty downgrade in order to fit onto the Snapdragon 835-powered standalone Quest headset as was expected. The most important bits are that the gameplay is still fluid and the physics still work as designed.
This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com.
Copyright 2019 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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"Classic castle-crawling adventure game Shadowgate comes to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/classic-castle-crawling-adventure-game-shadowgate-comes-to-switch-ps4-and-xbox-one"
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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 Classic castle-crawling adventure game Shadowgate comes to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One 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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Abstraction Games announced today that Shadowgate will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on April 11.
This is a remake of a classic PC point-and-click adventure game. The original came out in 1987. This updated version first released for PC in 2014.
Shadowgate has players exploring an evil castle as they attempt to defeat a warlock. The game has many ways to kill you, and seeing them all is part of the fun.
This remake received funding on Kickstarter in 2012, where it raised $137,232. The project had a goal of $120,000.
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! 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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"Getting to $50 million: How to avoid the SaaS Valley of Death | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/getting-to-50-million-how-to-avoid-the-saas-valley-of-death"
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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 Getting to $50 million: How to avoid the SaaS Valley of Death 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.
With companies like Salesforce worth upwards of $100 billion, and incumbents like six-year-old Slack valued at over $7 billion, it would seem there is no better time to be a SaaS company. While this is true in many respects, especially in the U.S. where venture capital is flowing (allowing SaaS companies to scale quickly), the truth is that most SaaS companies don’t make it to even $1 million in revenue.
That’s right, just four percent of SaaS companies reach $1 million in revenue, and only .04 percent make it to $10 million. As revenue numbers increase , that number shrinks even more. With data like that, you’re probably as likely to win the lottery as you are to have a multimillion-dollar SaaS company.
Above: Source: Verne Harnish — https://scalingup.com Getting to $1 million. Everyone wants to be a SaaS company According to a 2018 survey from OpenView , SaaS companies reported having an average of nine competitors, up from two in 2013. Imagine being a customer and having to evaluate nine different products each time you want to make a purchase. Certainly there’s room in the market for a couple of major players, but it’s doubtful the other seven will succeed in an equally meaningful way. This is why market fit becomes so important, especially early on, and why companies that want to make it to $1 million should prioritize it.
So, what is product-market fit? Simply put: Your product fills a broad market need. You need to be the first or second startup to the table.
In a decade’s plus old blog post, Marc Andreessen wrote: “The market needs to be fulfilled and the market will be fulfilled, by the first viable product that comes along.” But, “In a terrible market, you can have the best product in the world and an absolutely killer team, and it doesn’t matter — you’re going to fail.” To get to the first million, SaaS companies shouldn’t worry too much about launching the most robust and feature-focused product. Rather, they should deliver a decent product fast.
Before our founding, our parent company came to the same realization. It had its hands all over retail: e-learning, multiple partnerships, information kiosks, etc. But in 2008 it realized it was doing too much. This broad focus wasn’t working, and the company was forced to look critically at the business: What were our key strengths; which trends did we see in the market; how could we make our business model more predictable and more scalable? From there, it divested a lot of activities and, more importantly, formed the business we have today. We reached $1 million four years later.
The $10 million mindset Every growth phase has its challenges, and you can’t grow if you have the same mindset at each stage. If you’re lucky enough to have found market fit and made it to $1 million and are set on the next big metric, chances are you’re what Verne Harnish, author of “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” calls a Gazelle: a small company experiencing hyper growth. This will be the most execution-focused phase in your growth and where it’s most critical to establish processes to evaluate and make decisions.
Here, the chances are good that you’ve hired a great team, who bring great ideas to the table. But working on all of these great ideas will slow you down. As a Gazelle, you need to execute on the right ideas and say no to other great ideas that are not right for you now. During this phase, the CEOs of successful SaaS companies define their priorities and objectives and focus on aligning everything: people, money, and processes on executing them.
We have personally experienced this. In 2010, we were seeing momentum in our product and the industry was lining up, but so was competition. We knew it was important for us to not lose our head start, so we took a huge step in expanding into the U.S. It was the right moment. How did we know? We started with desk research and developed milestones, taking the next step when each milestone was reached: hiring a local sales representative, then an implementation consultant, and finally signing on enough projects to support a team of three and signing an office lease.
Getting to 50 million: It’s about managing complexity People do not buy products; they buy solutions. To get to $50 million, SaaS companies need to enhance their implementation capacity while they scale their product. Constant product development is key for long-term product survival. A more diverse product portfolio further enhances your market potential.
To get to $50 million, you need to have the team to support your product and implementation pipelines. During our recent growth phase, we looked back and realized we had never really invested in our brand as an employer or in our recruitment capabilities. Finding qualified personnel became a bottleneck to our whole growth strategy. As product cannot exist without the people to build it, we started hiring candidates who were “good enough” too fast. This caused major headaches and expensive mistakes. Further, with our international expansion, our organization was becoming highly complex.
Complexity generates three fundamental barriers: the inability to staff/grow enough leaders; a lack of systems and infrastructure to scale properly; and the inability to address market dynamics. As we move to $50 million, a big focus has been on trying to remove those barriers. Some of this comes from rethinking how our organization defines leaders. But for every organization, there will be different challenges.
Each will have barriers and opportunities. But every company needs to remain diligent. Don’t expect growth because you’re SaaS; come to the table knowing that because you’re SaaS you’ll face intense competition. Look at every growth cycle differently and as an opportunity to understand what challenges and opportunities will inhibit or seed your 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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"Restaurant management platform Toast raises $250 million at $2.7 billion valuation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/restaurant-management-platform-toast-raises-250-million-at-2-7-billion-valuation"
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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 Restaurant management platform Toast raises $250 million at $2.7 billion valuation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Toast 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.
Point-of-sale (POS) technology might not be the sexiest of sectors, but it is a vital cog in the commercial wheel for the restaurant and retail industries. And that is why venture capitalists (VCs) and Wall Street have a certain affinity for POS startups.
After raising nearly $600 million in VC cash, Jack Dorsey’s Square went public in 2015 at an IPO price of $9, and today its shares are trading at more than 700 percent over that. Elsewhere, Montréal-based Lightspeed POS went public last month after raising nearly $300 million, while New York’s TouchBistro has raised north of $100 million, including a $70 million tranche last summer. Meanwhile, the mighty PayPal is currently in the process of pushing through its $2.2 billion acquisition of European POS startup iZettle.
And it’s against that backdrop that Boston-based Toast today announced a chunky $250 million series E round of funding led by TCV and Tiger Global Management, with participation from most of its existing investors which include Bessemer Venture Partners. Alphabet’s GV, which had invested in several previous rounds, didn’t invest this time around.
Following its $115 million cash injection less than a year ago , this takes Toast’s total money raised to $500 million since its inception in 2011, and increases its valuation to $2.7 billion.
One-stop shop As with the likes of Square, Lightspeed POS, and TouchBistro, Toast is much more than a simple POS technology provider: it’s essentially a one-stop shop restaurant management platform, spanning front-of-house, back-of-house, online, and customer loyalty programs. It also serves up data and analytics covering trends such as sales patterns.
Above: Toast analytics With an extra $250 million in the bank, Toast said that it’s well-financed to invest heavily in research and development (R&D) to “solve some of the industry’s most pressing issues,” as well as expand its team. In fact, the company said that it plans to invest more than $1 billion in R&D, over the next five years, to further develop its software and hardware for the restaurant industry. A spokesperson said that its revenue increased 148 percent in 2018, though declined to give specific numbers.
“Last year we celebrated the five year anniversary of our first Toast customer, Barismo,” noted Toast CEO Chris Comparato. “Now with tens of thousands of restaurants powered by Toast – and nearly 1,500 employees serving our community — it’s impressive to see how far we’ve come. At our core, we believe every restaurant should benefit from the massive investment we continue to make in restaurant technology.” IPO? The elephant in the room here, of course, is whether or not Toast will soon follow Lightspeed POS into the public markets — it certainly appears to be of that scale. A spokesperson told VentureBeat that while this is something they will likely eventually pursue, it’s not something that is on their near-term roadmap.
“Though we are approaching the scale where many software companies choose to IPO, we are laser-focused on building a large, sustainable platform and community that provides a world-class experience for our customers as well as a great place for our employees to come and build a career,” they said. “There are many ways to finance a business with this much momentum, and an IPO is certainly something we will consider as one of those options as time goes on.” Certainly, TCV — the growth equity firm that co-led Toast’s Series E round — has a long list of high-profile portfolio companies that went public, or are getting ready to go public. These include: Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Twilio, and LinkedIn. In other words, Toasts is in good company.
“At TCV, we invest in companies that have the potential to reshape entire industries,” said TCV general partner David Yuan, who now joins Toast’s board of directors. “By providing restaurants of all sizes with access to innovative technology, Toast is leveling the playing field and leading the industry’s transition to the cloud.” 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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"The DeanBeat: The accidental game companies have become intentional | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-deanbeat-the-accidental-game-companies-have-become-intentional"
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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 accidental game companies have become intentional Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Stadia is the plural of stadium, in case you were wondering.
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Gamers have been excited about battle royale games like Apex Legends and Fortnite.
But if you pull up 10,000 feet to see what’s really happening, it’s clear we have a battle royale in the game industry itself.
I have been fond of dividing the world of the game industry into the intentional game companies — Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo — and the accidental game companies — Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook. By accidental, I mean that they created platforms that were meant for something else, but eventually taken over by games. The iPhone is a perfect example of that.
The intentional game companies have been deadly serious about games for a long time, and they have decades-long credibility with their customers. The accidental game companies have created huge platforms that game developers have adopted, using them to create tons of money. These include the Google Play Store, Apple’s App Store, Facebook’s Oculus virtual reality platform, and Amazon’s various game services, Twitch streaming service, and Lumberyard game engine. (This story foretells the kind of discussions we’ll have at GamesBeat Summit 2019, our event in Los Angeles on April 23 and April 24.) The battle royale begins Above: Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, at GDC 2019.
I’ve often speculated in the past — in interviews with former Sony executive and current Google Stadia chief Phil Harrison (back in 2017 at the Gamelab event in Barcelona) and Jack Tretton , the former head of Sony’s U.S. PlayStation business — that the big tech companies would eventually wake up to the gaming opportunity.
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! And in the past couple of weeks, we have seen that happen. On March 19, Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage at the Game Developers Conference to declare that games are for everyone and that it wants billions more people to become gamers. That carried gravity. And Phil Harrison brought game business cred as he announced Google’s cloud gaming platform. Jade Raymond, formerly of EA and Ubisoft, pledged she would make games for this platform and run Google’s internal game studio.
The Netflix of games Above: An Apple Arcade appears.
On Monday, Apple became the latest company to propose a subscription game service, Apple Arcade, launching this fall. It is the latest company to offer a “Netflix of games,” where you can enjoy dozens of hundreds of high-quality games for a monthly fee.
These companies are all realizing that gaming pushes the intersection of creativity and technology — a street corner that Steve Jobs used to say drove Apple forward. Jobs sadly never came to accept gaming as a passion. But it is clear that Apple sees gaming as a way to push forward technologies such as the smartphone itself or to give birth to new ones like augmented reality. We can expect more from Apple to show it really does care about games.
Pichai praised gaming for “pushing computing,” a goal that all of Google cares about. He pledged that Google’s dozens of data centers would stream high-intensity games over a low-latency network in 200 countries around the world.
Amazon got religious about games earlier, and Jeff Bezos has been hiring game developers like John Smedley and telling them to make games with “ridiculous computation.” It bought Twitch for $970 million in 2014 , and now Twitch’s streams reach more than 100 million gamers a month. And Facebook, not to go unmentioned, dove deep into virtual reality in 2014 with its nearly $3 billion acquisition of Oculus. Add China’s Tencent to the mix, and the global nature of the battle royale takes full shape.
The earlier Phil Harrison Above: Phil Harrison (left) of Alloy Platform Industries and Matt Handrahan of GamesIndustry.biz.
Back in Barcelona, in 2017, I asked Harrison — who was then a neutral venture capitalist — what he thought of the intentional and accidental game companies.
Harrison replied, “Which would you rather be: a focused company with a smaller balance sheet, or an unfocused company with a very large balance sheet? Ultimately a strong balance sheet is a good thing to have, which is why a company like Amazon could end up being a disruptive force in games. They have AWS as this secret provider of incredible services to so many games companies, which they’re monetizing like crazy.” He also said, “I think Amazon knows they have a games business. It’s interesting that the games bit of Amazon reports in to the AWS leadership. That’s not a surprise or an accident. That’s very purposeful. The one unknown, unseen is what Apple is really doing in AR and VR. I don’t believe for an instant that what they showed at the worldwide developer conference is all they’re doing in AR. But they made a very strong statement of intent, and that’s exciting for the future.” I’m pretty sure you could have substituted Google for Amazon in that conversation, but Amazon signaled its intentions earlier with the Twitch deal.
Jack’s insight Above: Jack Tretton on the stage during Sony’s 2013 E3 media briefing.
And I also asked Jack Tretton , the former head of the Sony PlayStation business in the U.S., what he thought of the competition. That was way back in March 2017.
“I had an opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with Jeff Bezos. He reached out to me just after I left Sony. I really enjoyed that,” Tretton said. “I’ve certainly spoken to Google and Apple as well. They’ve always had the potential to be major players, but I didn’t see the passion at the commitment at the points when I spoke to them, what I feel you really need to have.” Tretton added, “There was no question, when I joined Sony, that they were in it to win. They were investing the resources and they had the know-how to be successful. Microsoft was always committed. They had to go through some growing pains because they do things uniquely, but I never questioned their commitment. To be successful in this industry, you have to be committed.” And Tretton said, “There’s never been any question in my mind that Apple, Amazon, or Google, types of companies like those, could be phenomenally successful if they committed to it. But you know better than anybody that gaming culture is unique. It’s unlike any other business. If they try to run it like other parts of their business, they’re going to struggle. The keys to success at Sony and Microsoft — they’ve kind of been islands off the corporate coast. They’re not running Xbox the way they’d run Windows. That’s a lot of the reason why they’ve been so successful. It’ll be interesting to see how that culture and that commitment evolves at companies like Google. I did hear about Phil’s appointment. I certainly wish him a lot of luck.” The war for developers Above: GDC 2019 drew more than 29,000 people to San Francisco.
Now all of gaming is in play. Developers are being courted like crazy. Mel Kirk, vice president of publishing, said that all sorts of publishers are approaching his pinball game company to get its games on their platforms. These tech giants each have enough money to buy just about every major gaming company in the industry.
They are not necessarily going to do that. Because in gaming, the talent can walk out the door the second that an acquisition closes. Tencent, aware of that, has been buying minority stakes in a lot of game companies — like Riot Games, Epic Games, Supercell, Frontier Developments, Glu Mobile, Grinding Gear Games, Skydance Media, Activision Blizzard, and Ubisoft.
Game engine makers Unity and Epic Games are also squaring off, adding a unique dimension to the competition for games. They enable developers to publish their games on just about any platform, so the developers do not have to beg the platform makers to help them.
Yet the platform makers are making serious chess moves. If Google allows Epic’s Unreal-based games to run on any platform — PCs, consoles, tablets, and smartphones — then Unity’s ability to do that has less value for developers. And if Google can get high-end games to run on smartphones, the gamers don’t have to pay Apple anything, cutting Apple — which makes billions of dollars by taking 30 percent of game revenues — out of the financial take entirely.
Harrison said that Google would try to improve its cloud-gaming latency by making sure players could hop from the computer in the Stadia controller to the Google network, bypassing other players in the “last mile.” Could that be a 5G play? Or will it mean Google Fiber and Google’s mobile network will carry that signal? I don’t know, but if I were Comcast and Verizon, I would be a tad worried about the consequences of that strategic move.
You can bet that those who have shown their cards yet are intensely focused on the battle royale strategy.
I am certain that we will see Microsoft’s response at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June. But privately, one exec noted to me that Microsoft’s Azure cloud business is already bigger than Google’s cloud. Indeed, Microsoft did its own test run of cloud gaming with Crackdown 3 , applying the data center computing power to add more destruction to Crackdown 3’s multiplayer mode.
The global chess game Above: Phil Harrison shows the Stadia controller.
As I told many people last week, the global chess game for gaming is afoot. And I have no idea where the pieces are and who has the queen. But it sure is fun to watch.
In my latest interview with Harrison, I could still see that Harrison was as sharp as ever. He knew the strategic importance of YouTube, which has become the platform for gaming influencers. He knew the challenges of getting a company like Google to care about games, and his answer was telling when I asked him if Google was really serious.
“Google has, rightly or wrongly, trusted me with a huge amount of autonomy to build this vision and tell this story. But I can’t do this on my own,” he said. “What I love about Google is the collaborative nature of the company and the fact that I have partnerships all across the company, from YouTube to our technical infrastructure to Google Cloud to our hardware business, who are participating and partnering with us to make Stadia real. It’s not just my team. It’s a much broader team.” He added, “You saw, with Sundar [Pichai, CEO of Google] as part of our presentation yesterday, that we have the support and investment from the top. But we do have the autonomy when we need it.” 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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"Rovio CEO -- Taking Angry Birds to movies, augmented reality, and beyond | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/rovio-ceo-taking-angry-birds-to-movies-augmented-reality-and-beyond"
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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 Rovio CEO — Taking Angry Birds to movies, augmented reality, and beyond Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Kati Levoranta, CEO of Rovio, and Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, head of the game division at Rovio.
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Some people think that Angry Birds is too big. Like a meme that everyone has seen on the internet. Since 2009, the games with these cute birds that take their anger out on pigs in fortresses have been downloaded more than four billion times.
That’s about half the people on the planet, unless of course there’s some fellow who downloaded the game a billion times for fun. And it’s not enough for Rovio. That’s why the company is experimenting with new technologies and new ways to make Angry Birds more accessible to the rest of the world.
The company is working on its second Angry Birds movie , and it recently showed an augmented reality version of the Angry Birds: Isle of Pigs on smartphones. The idea is to take the game to innovative platforms that can make it feel as fresh as when we first saw it.
I spoke with Kati Levoranta, CEO of Rovio, and Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, executive vice president and head of the game division at Rovio. at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
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! Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Above: A scene from the Angry Birds 2 movie.
GamesBeat: You have a new AR game out, right? Kati Levoranta: Yeah, how did it feel? GamesBeat: It was good. It seemed pretty similar to the Magic Leap demo I tried out.
Alexandre Pelletier-Normand: It’s based on the same level, yeah. But in AR it gives a different experience. It’s more accessible as well.
GamesBeat: How big of an investment is that? Is AR a big thing on your radar? Levoranta: It’s one of the things we’re exploring as part of our future of gaming strategy pillar. We’re looking at AR and MR. We want to be ready when it seems like the time is right.
Above: Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs.
GamesBeat: At this point you can spread things across a number of platforms. You don’t have to pick a particular AR platform.
Pelletier-Normand: You need to start somewhere. For us, when we started working on the game, we wanted to focus on one platform, on ARKit, so we could focus more on the content. But now that it’s out we’re investigating what we can do with Google as well.
GamesBeat: I know Magic Leap isn’t selling these things in very large numbers. But is there some value that comes back to you as far as learning how to make this kind of game? Pelletier-Normand: Yes. As Kati pointed out, we have a whole pillar of our strategy around exploring the future of gaming. When you do this, when you’re part of the people who are shaping the market, not just following after a while, you need to take some risks. You need to be able to explore those different platforms with some investment. As you pointed out yourself, the investment we did with the Magic Leap means we have something we can deploy on different AR and VR platforms.
Levoranta: And again, we can be ready when things start moving.
GamesBeat: Did you look at Hatch the same way? Levoranta: We’ve been investing in Hatch already for many years, first in Rovio and then as its own stand-alone company. Rovio owns 80 percent of Hatch. What Hatch has been developing is a cloud-based streaming service that could be one way, in the future, of playing games. We’re exploring that as well.
GamesBeat: It seems like Google endorsed that as well today.
Levoranta: Yeah! They came out with a piece of news, definitely.
GamesBeat: What are you most excited about right now, putting the most resources into? Levoranta: At this point in time — first of all, if you look at Rovio, we identify ourselves as a games-first entertainment company. Games are very much at the core. That’s where most of our resources are going at the moment, and it will continue to be that way. We’re focusing on developing new games. We’ve put more effort into that over the last year, and we came out with a game release in January. [Angry Birds Dream Blast] launched a few months ago. It’s been developing very well.
At the same time, we have some very good existing games. Angry Birds 2 was our best-performing game last year. It did really, really well. It grew 49 percent year-on-year. That’s the other part of the gaming business, of course. You want to make sure that your top games, your existing games, are run as services, with great new content and events and other campaigns, things player can enjoy for a longer period of time. That’s the essence of the gaming side.
Of course, we also have the movie sequel coming in August. That’s a big thing for the brand licensing unit, which is handling the merchandising as well. We’re expecting to see a nice boost for our licensing business through the movie. Then, at the end of the year, we’ll have the 10th anniversary of Angry Birds. That’ll be a nice celebration.
We’ve said publicly that we plan to launch two new games this year. One has been launched, and in the second half of the year we’re looking to launch another game. It’s an exciting time.
GamesBeat: What’s the reach for Angry Birds like now? Levoranta: The first Angry Birds game came out in 2009, in December. It’s been almost 10 years. As far as reach, more than 4 billion downloads. The brand awareness is on the level of 97 percent globally. It’s a well-recognized brand out there. Millions of people play the games every day. Brands aren’t born just like that. You have to work a lot to get an IP to the level of a brand.
GamesBeat: Are you still putting a significant amount of activity into new IP? Pelletier-Normand: We have a healthy portfolio of games in development right now. We have 13 games in development. Some of them are building on Angry Birds, trying to make that brand evolve, but about half of them are attempts at doing new things. Not only new IP, but also new genres that we haven’t worked with in the past.
GamesBeat: Are you doing all of that in-house, inside Rovio? Pelletier-Normand: Not everything. We do some work with external partners like Resolution Games. But most of it is done internally.
Above: Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs.
GamesBeat: Did you see the new Black Mirror Bandersnatch project, the choose-your-own-adventure Netflix movie? There’s a new company coming out as a startup called Dorian that’s raised a couple million dollars. They think there’s going to be a new category of immersive fiction, as they call it. It’s interactive — it’s not a TV show — but it makes use of game technology for storytelling that’s maybe aimed at a broader market than just gamers. I thought that might be interesting for a company like yours, where it seems like you’ve reached all the gamers out there, but there are still a lot of people who aren’t playing. I think there’s something like games that could be done, that’s more broadly appealing than what we have now.
Levoranta: What do you think that could be for us? GamesBeat: You have something that reaches so many people through games, but you’re also interested in doing things like movies that are going to reach people that aren’t already hooked on games.
Levoranta: It could be that the brand is so versatile that it works for many different kinds of solutions and technologies. It’s a whole family brand. There’s something for every member of the family, the games and the movies and the products and the animation.
Above: Kati Levoranta, CEO of Rovio, and Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, head of the game division at Rovio.
GamesBeat: If you had an Angry Birds movie that had choices….
Levoranta: Yeah, what kind of ending you wanted to see.
Pelletier-Normand: We’re exploring things like that.
GamesBeat: There’s another category people are investing in, digital humans. Epic Games does super-realistic human faces. They’re going to push that tomorrow. Another group is spinning out of that, and from VR, to create believable AI characters. They might or might not be used in games. One of them spun out of Oculus Story Studios, which was first a VR company, and now they’re working in digital humans. You combine that with these kinds of “choices” games and you could get something that Netflix or Google might be interested in funding, something beyond traditional gaming, but using game technology in some way to advance entertainment.
Levoranta: It’s an interesting approach to the technology. As you say, there are still tons of people who aren’t gamers per se. How do you reach those people? You may need something different. We’ve reached 4 billion people over many years, but if you could get there in one year, that would be pretty great. That’s a pretty big number.
GamesBeat: Is there anything else that’s looking big for Rovio? Levoranta: Like I outlined in the beginning, this is an exciting year for us. We’re looking forward to seeing things come alive over the next few months. Angry Birds is really delivering the brand promise to its fans this year.
Above: A scene from Angry Birds 2.
GamesBeat: You can still defy the people who think Angry Birds is too ubiquitous? Levoranta: I’m sure there are still people who want to spend time with the brand. We see it in our figures, that this is the case. We were just in Los Angeles the other day doing the screening with Sony. It’s even funnier than the first one.
If you look at the 10 years that Angry Birds has existed, how much it has evolved, how many new things that have happened since the first classic game, people aren’t getting tired of this. There isn’t too much Angry Birds. It’s quite the opposite of that. We just keep bringing new stuff and interesting content for our fans. It proves that they want to have more. In Angry Birds 2, there’s so much new stuff all the time, and fans love it. There can’t be too much Angry Birds, I don’t think.
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.
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"Razer launches first Xbox One wireless keyboard and mouse | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/razer-launches-first-wireless-keyboard-and-mouse-for-xbox-one"
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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 Razer launches first Xbox One wireless keyboard and mouse Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Razer Turret 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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Razer is launching the Razer Turret , a wireless keyboard and mouse for the Xbox One video game console.
That means that console gamers won’t necessarily be at a disadvantage in the world of cross play, where PC gamers with mice and keyboards square off against console gamers in shooter games such as Fortnite.
“We’re extremely proud to team up with Microsoft to bring you this exclusive collaboration,” said Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, in a statement. “With the Razer Turret for Xbox One, it is now possible to bring the full experience of a keyboard and mouse, with lighting and game integration to Xbox One.” The Razer Turret is built for gaming on the couch, with a 2.4-gigahertz connection via a single dongle for the mouse and keyboard, and battery life of up to 40 hours on a single charge.
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! It has Xbox Dynamic Lighting and Razer Chroma lighting technology, so console gamers can now have access to the Razer ecosystem of lighting with up to 16.8 million color options and lighting effects for the mouse and keyboard.
Razer has worked with developers to bring Xbox Dynamic Lighting and Razer Chroma support in-game, with titles such as X-Morph Defense, Vermintide 2, and others.
“Razer Chroma expands even further into the living room, building upon the success we’ve had with Philips Hue in room lighting, ” Tan said.
Above: Razer Turret The keyboard has Razer’s gaming-grade mechnical switches, with a lifespan of up to 80 million keystrokes. A dedicated Xbox key pulls up the Xbox One dashboard.
The mouse is based on Razer’s Mamba Wireless gaming mouse and has a 5G advanced optical sensor and Razer mechanical mouse switches with 50-million click durability.
The mouse surface is hidden underneath the main body of the keyboard and can be extended for use, then retracted for storage or charging. It has a built-in ergonomic wrist rest that extends from the base of the Razer Turret keyboard.
The Razer Turret for Xbox One is fully compatible with Windows 10 PCs. It will sell for $250 and it is available soon.
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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4,681 | 2,019 |
"Phil Harrison's next stop is at the GamesBeat Summit | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/phil-harrisons-next-stop-is-at-the-gamesbeat-summit"
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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 Event Phil Harrison’s next stop is at the GamesBeat Summit Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Phil Harrison is vice president at Google in charge of Stadia.
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Google’s leadership team trusted Phil Harrison to head the search company’s foray into games.
As vice president in charge of Google Stadia , Harrison has to make sure that the company has put all the right things in place to make its cloud gaming platform a success.
I’m happy to report that Harrison will be one of our speakers at GamesBeat Summit 2019, which will be held on April 23 and April 24 in Los Angeles at Two Bit Circus, the micro-amusement park with modern entertainment like virtual reality stations. After last week, Harrison is the person to talk to in the game industry, and we are delighted he will do that at our event.
Check out the agenda.
Harrison is one of more than 90 speakers who will talk on the theme of “Building gaming communities” across two days.
The code GBS19EXPERIENCE will unlock a 20 percent discount on your registration.
Harrison’s appointment and the authority Google’s leaders have apparently given him is a clear sign that gaming has arrived and the biggest tech companies on earth are taking it seriously. Cloud gaming has been around for more than a decade, with disappointing results that have left many gamers skeptical.
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! But the infrastructure of the internet is different today, and graphics processing units (GPUs) are commonplace in data centers. Cloud gaming should be a solvable problem, and Google’s Stadia is going to be the biggest test yet.
Rivals like Amazon, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Sony are likely to compete across games, much the way Apple is competing in movies and TV shows with the likes of Netflix, Disney, Amazon, and other Hollywood companies.
Harrison’s appearance at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week was the starting gun for a new round of competition. But many questions are still open. Harrison will appear onstage with an interesting moderator, and their discussion will shed light on how this is going to be good for game creators of all kinds. And that’s why we think GamesBeat Summit 2019 will be a can’t-miss conference for the who’s who of the game industry to gather and learn.
Above: Phil Harrison shows off the Google Stadia game controller at GDC 2019 last week.
Google has a lot of skeptics. But Harrison is a dangerous man to run Google’s business — at least dangerous to the competitors — because he brings game business credibility to a big company that has never had enough gamer DNA.
Harrison joined Google in January 2018. Before that, he was serving as a tech investor and adviser at London Venture Partners and Alloy Platform Industries. He was also a key executive in Microsoft’s Xbox business from 2012 to 2015. He was a board member at Atari and before that he served in a number of executive positions at Sony’s PlayStation business over the course of 15 years. He was part of the original team that got the PlayStation off the ground in 1994.
His influence is far-reaching. Just yesterday, Geoff Keighley announced that Harrison will be a special adviser for The Game Awards , the once-a-year event that draws tens of millions of viewers in celebration of gaming.
Harrison has always been an interesting figure in games. I remember one time we rode a bus together at the old Ziff Davis Gaming Summit and we talked about the then-novelty of the Blair Witch Project.
I also recall George Haber of Gigapixel chasing down Harrison, who was then at Sony, in the halls of the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, to pitch Harrison on a new graphics chip. Harrison turned to me and asked if this guy was for real. (Haber was for real, and he almost got his chip in the Xbox).
One of the consequences of Harrison’s cred in gaming that goes so far back is that he has been able to hire a team of veterans, including Jade Raymond , former Ubisoft and Electronic Arts executive.
“I’ve been really happy with the team I’ve been building. More than half of my leadership team now comes from the game industry,” Harrison said in our interview last week. “We have some very seasoned talent. We have some great new passionate thinkers. It’s fun seeing the inside of Google that Sundar alluded to yesterday. There are a lot of passionate gamers who got into tech because of games. They work at Google. They’re now able to bring their talents to a game platform. It’s a win-win. It’s not just about hiring people from outside of Google. It’s also about finding those talents from inside.” 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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"Lyft will donate $50 million a year to 'improving city life' through City Works | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/lyft-will-donate-50-million-a-year-to-improving-city-life-through-city-works"
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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 Lyft will donate $50 million a year to ‘improving city life’ through City Works 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.
Hot on the heels of a $24.3 billion IPO , Lyft today announced a program aimed at strengthening its civic engagement in the places its drivers live and work. The program is called City Works , and it will begin in Los Angeles before spreading to metros across the country, where Lyft will form advisory councils made up of civic leaders and advocates and commit a minimum of $50 million a year (or 1 percent of profits) to “improving … life through grassroots transportation initiatives.” “We’re proud to stand alongside Mayor [Eric] Garcetti and civic leaders in Los Angeles to launch City Works,” said Lyft general manager of Southern California Allen Narcisse in a statement. “[This] represents our long-term commitment to support cities across the country with sustainable, accessible, and connected transportation solutions.” In Los Angeles, Lyft’s initiatives will fall under three broad categories: providing transportation, developing transportation infrastructure, and promoting clean energy usage. Through City Works, it will offer free and discounted rides to support staff and communities of Garcetti’s A Bridge Home partner organizations, including the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles, PATH, and the People Concern, and it’ll work with the city to expand transportation infrastructure in underserved neighborhoods (in part with its forthcoming Drive Centers ). Additionally, it will collaborate with nonprofits like Investing in Place to make bikes and scooters available to low-income families.
City Works is more or less an amalgam of Lyft’s existing commitments to community uplift, albeit with fresh capital behind it. The ride-sharing company pledged last year to make the bulk of its rides carbon neutral and to use 100 percent renewable energy at its facilities, and it recently announced that it’ll purchase renewable energy credits through Los Angeles’ Green Energy for a Green LA program. Lyft also invests in services that minimize single-occupancy cars, like Shared Saver.
But it’s worth noting that the company isn’t unique in this regard.
Just yesterday, Uber highlighted the ways its dockless bike share services are improving outcomes in cities like Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Uber, like Lyft, partners with transit systems to identify first- and last-mile challenges unsolved by public transit and aims to reduce carbon emissions by “collaborating with experts in the hybrid and electric vehicle field.” (Its EV Champions Initiative tasks drivers with completing 5 million electric vehicle rides in 2019, and in London it’s targeting 100 percent hybrid or battery-electric cars for UberX.) Uber’s and Lyft’s critics contend that their outreach efforts are little more than a smokescreen meant to distract from poor treatment of drivers. This week, after Uber slashed its per-mile pay by 25 percent in Los Angeles County and parts of Orange County, resulting in a payout of 60 cents per mile instead of 80 cents, thousands of drivers participated in coordinate protests across California to demand better pay and greater transparency. (In San Francisco, picketing forced Lyft to relocate a presentation to investors.) 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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"Lyft was valued at $24.3 billion in its IPO, and raised more than it planned | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/lyft-was-valued-at-24-3-billion-in-its-ipo-and-raised-more-than-it-planned"
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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 Lyft was valued at $24.3 billion in its IPO, and raised more than it planned 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 ) — Lyft was valued at $24.3 billion in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a ride-hailing startup on Thursday, raising more than it had set off to do as investors overlooked uncertainty over its path to becoming a profitable company.
Lyft’s IPO sets the stage for the stock market debut of larger rival Uber , which Reuters has reported will kick off in April.
Uber has been told by its investment bankers that it could be valued at as much as $120 billion.
The success of the IPO came despite Lyft’s steep losses, criticism of its dual-class share structure and some concerns over its strategy for autonomous driving , for fear of missing out on the company’s strong revenue growth.
“In a good market, people look beyond things. They don’t see the problems as much,” said Brian Hamilton, co-founder of data firm Sageworks, speaking before the pricing.
The ride-hailing industry is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years, as young millennials in big cities choose not to buy their own car. Yet the sector is fraught with questions about the future of automated driving, regulatory pushback and legal challenges over drivers’ pay and benefits.
Lyft’s valuation makes it the biggest company to go public since Alibaba Group in 2014. It paves the way for other Silicon Valley companies seeking to float in the stock market this year, including Pinterest, Slack Technologies and Postmates.
Lyft raised $2.34 billion in its IPO. It said it priced 32.5 million shares, slightly more that it was offering originally, at $72, the top of its already elevated $70-$72 per share target range. Lyft started its IPO investor road show earlier this month with a target range of $62-$68 per share.
The stock is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the symbol “LYFT”.
The IPO market had a slow start in 2019 due to volatile markets at the end of last year and the government shutdown in January blocking U.S. regulators from processing new IPO applicants.
With start-ups like Lyft staying private for longer, there is a backlog of demand to allocate more money to stocks which are considered high-growth in order to diversify away from Wall Street’s FAANG trade which is made up of Facebook, Amazon.com, Apple, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet.
Nevertheless, there are concerns among some investors that these IPOs may be coming at the peak of the market, when the benchmark S&P 500 Index has risen more than 200 percent since 2008.
“They’re buying at the top of a bull market that’s lasted for nine years,” said Roberts.
Profitability questions Lyft, which was valued at $15 billion in final private fundraising round in 2018, kicked off its 10-day IPO roadshow on March 18. The company’s executives made stops in cities such as New York, Baltimore, Kansas and Los Angeles. Reuters reported the IPO was oversubscribed after just two days.
It has now nearly 40 percent of the U.S. ride-sharing market, according to its regulatory filing.
Lyft’s revenue was $2.16 billion for 2018, double the previous year’s and far higher than $343 million in 2016. It posted a loss of $911 million in 2018 versus $688 million in 2017.
Lyft was launched in 2012 and is led by its founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer. The company has not laid out a timeline for when it will turn a profit, but stock investors have shown patience in the past if they feel the growth will pay off, with companies like Amazon staying in the red until years after its IPO.
Lyft is smaller than rival Uber and so far has focused on the U.S. and Canadian markets. Uber, a global logistics and transportation company most recently valued at $76 billion in the private market, is seeking a valuation as high as $120 billion, although some analysts have pegged its value closer to $100 billion based on selected financial figures it has disclosed.
Unlike Uber, which has developed its own self-driving division, Lyft has chosen to strike partnerships to expand in the sector, including with car parts suppliers Magna International Inc and Aptiv Plc. General Motors Co is an investor in Lyft.
( Reporting by Carl O’Donnell and Joshua Franklin in New York; editing by Grant McCool 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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"Keywords: The not-so-secret elves of game development | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/keywords-the-not-so-secret-elves-of-game-development"
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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 Keywords: The not-so-secret elves of game development Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Keywords at GDC 2019.
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We’ve heard about a lot of job losses in the video game industry, with Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard laying off more than 1,150 people alone. Developers like Telltale … have also gone under, taking with them lots of developer jobs.
But one company has kept growing.
Keywords has grown to more than 6,000 people, adding more than 700 game development jobs last year alone. It has grown through 10 acquisitions in the past year, adding more studios with the necessary skills for Keywords’ clients.
Keywords has become one of the biggest game development outsourcing companies in the world. It exists to service the game creators who have dreams of games that are bigger than their staffs. I spoke with Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords, about the business of games in the midst of one of the industry’s biggest shows, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
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! Above: Andrew Day is CEO of Keywords.
GamesBeat: Are you guys still at about 5,000 people? Andrew Day: We finished the year with 6,000 on the payroll, but we had an average of about 5,300 last year.
GamesBeat: How many deals did you conclude? Day: I think eight or nine last year.
GamesBeat: What are you bringing on board? More talent in more places? Day: What we’ve done, particularly last year, if you look at the acquisitions, we were filling in some of the gaps in our services platform. As you know, we’re building this global services platform for our video game developer and publisher clients. Within that platform, we hope to be able to provide services at all stages of the life cycle of a video game.
For instance, we bought into music services for the first time. We now have a group that manages licensed music. It can have music composed specifically for games. It can do the whole audio branding, helping clients to think about the value of the music within their brand and how important that is to have for the life of the brand and how it is to evolve that over time. We also have a little record label as well, where we license back music that our clients have commissioned. There’s a big fan base for game music, and we can publish that music on behalf of our clients.
We made a few technology investments. We acquired a business called Yokozuna Data, which has a very sophisticated predictive analytics platform, to help increase, effectively, the lifetime value of gamers, while at the same time giving gamers a smoother experience within the game.
Above: Keywords has offices in the U.S. as well for external development.
GamesBeat: Where did you fall on revenue last year? Day: We already reported, so revenues were 251 million euros. Our profits were 38-ish million euros.
GamesBeat: Does that compare to some other peers that you think are similar in some way? Day: I don’t think so. I don’t think there is a peer that would be easy for us to compare ourselves to in the first place. I know that we’re the biggest in this space. Others that will do some of what we do, you have companies like Sumo Digital in the U.K. There are a couple of Japanese public companies that do primarily QA services. But for the wide range of services we’ve got, there’s no comparable company.
GamesBeat: Do you feel like you’ve been very flexibly used by the industry? Day: People use us for a number of reasons. Some people use us because — they almost use us for overflow management. Some people use us as their primary production platform for one or more services. Between there, there’s a range of engagements we have with our clients. Some will use one or two services in a very strategic manner, and then they’ll have a more ad hoc engagement with some of the other services.
We’re finding that it’s been fairly frictionless to introduce clients that are strong, loyal clients of one or two services — it’s been easy to introduce them to other services. What we call cross-selling has been very successful for us. It’s also been very valuable for our clients. It’s a very low-friction way they can access the best of breed services while really having an understanding of how Keywords behaves. If there’s ever an issue, they know how we behave. They know how we respond. They know we put the projects first.
GamesBeat: It’s been a tumultuous industry in the last year. Does that affect you very much? Day: It’s an industry with lots of ups and downs. It’s very fast-moving. But I think that’s one of the things I like about the Keywords model. We’re not directly exposed to any one of these particular moving parts. We’re the picks and shovels to the industry. We don’t have to bet the farm on whether VR is going to be successful, or whether streaming is going to be the future direction of games. What we need to do is embrace the changes in unison with our clients. As our clients move in this or that direction, we’re brought in with them. We follow the content, rather than the platform or whatever.
We do a lot of work in VR. We do a fair bit in AR. If you look back three years ago, the buzz was all about VR and so on, and it never quite got there. I’m very glad we weren’t having to make a choice as to whether we wanted to invest heavily in that direction or not.
GamesBeat: I thought of you when I learned more about how Cuphead came to market. It was a small team of three people for a long time, and then they caught the attention of Microsoft with the style of the game. Then they started building it up, and in the last four months they tripled the size of the team. They realized they weren’t going to get it done any other way. I don’t know how often you see something like that.
Day: It’s increasingly—I was going to say it’s a well-trodden model, but it’s being chosen now by teams. We have a few clients ourselves where the teams have come out of large, established game companies. They’re high talent teams. They get funding, which is important. Then they make a deliberate decision to keep the core team very tight. They use the services platform we have to provide everything else.
They can achieve global scale just by plugging into the Keywords infrastructure. They can have, hopefully, the best art, the best QA, the best localization, great backend tools, all that sort of thing, without having to do it all themselves. It’s a very efficient way of developing quite large games, without having to staff up internally. The traditional model of doing everything yourself is increasingly looking a bit odd.
Above: Keywords Studios CEO Andrew Day in 2017.
GamesBeat: I was also thinking of Rockstar, with eight years on Red Dead Redemption 2.
Day: They still have the approach of doing pretty much everything themselves.
GamesBeat: But they had 3,000 names in the credits.
Day: Exactly. A lot of them are voice actors and so on. But they did use services from us as well.
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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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"Game on: The race for CBD market share | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/game-on-the-race-for-cbd-market-share"
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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 Game on: The race for CBD market share Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Diamond CBD America is going coo-coo for CBD oil and the race is on for CBD brands aspiring to establish top-of-mind awareness and industry dominance. Both cannabis giants and the smaller underdogs are clamoring to get as far ahead of the pack as early in the “Green Rush” as possible.
Derived from hemp, marijuana’s non-intoxicating cousin, CBD provides medicinal benefits without the high that comes from THC. Hemp CBD is one of the fastest-growing markets in a generation with sales projected to reach into the billions. The Hemp Business Journal has predicted that the market for CBD will grow from $390 million in 2018 to approximately $1.3 billion by 2022.
One of the most notable characteristics of the CBD market is that CBD-infused products constitute one of the widest arrays of products of any herbal supplement. CBD can now be found in tinctures and CBD oils, candies, vape pens, baked goods, capsules and tablets, beverages, skin care and pain creams, cosmetics, bath bombs, patches, sprays, sex lubes, tampons, and suppositories.
Although these products are already being sold online and in boutiques nationwide, the only thing keeping CBD from showing up in every Walmart and 7 Eleven in the country is the FDA’s insistence that it is unlawful to add CBD to food products. If and when the FDA does grant CBD GRAS status, CBD sales are likely to leave marijuana sales in the dust and never look back.
One retailer, in particular, is not waiting for the rest of the pack to line up. Apparently, lawyers for CVS feel the risk of federal interference is low enough to go ahead and start selling non-edible CBD products in 800 stores across the country.
The big dogs in the CBD race The biggest entrants in the race for CBD market share — Canadian cannabis operations with more than a billion market cap such as Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, Cronos Group, Tilray, Aphria, and Hexo Corp — have eyes on the exploding U.S. market.
Rule Number One in consumer branding is that it’s far easier to acquire a brand with top-of-mind awareness than to build one from scratch. For example, Canadian licensed producer Tilray Inc., having spent $419 million CAD ($319 million USD) to acquire hemp company Manitoba Harvest, now has a head start with one of the bigger dogs in the race. Manitoba Harvest is the world’s largest hemp-foods manufacturer. Its products are sold at more than 16,000 retail stores throughout North America. It’s no stretch to add hemp extracts to their product offerings.
The underdogs In the CBD Race Along with the industry giants, there are quite a few smaller operations vying for market share. Many of them are expected to do quite well, potentially becoming targets for acquisition by larger companies.
Once such entrant, Florida-based PotNetwork Holdings (POTN), owners of Diamond CBD and a host of other CBD brands saw the CBD explosion coming and got a good head start on the race for market share.
Among the top 10 CBD sellers in the nation, Pot Network’s wholly owned subsidiary Diamond CBD has been prolific in its branding efforts with one of the largest arrays of CBD and hemp brands in the game. These include the Diamond CBD house brand, Diamond Hemp, Liquid Gold brand, Chill brand edibles and oils, Meds Biotech — a brand aimed at healthcare providers — MediPets pet CBD oils, and celebrity endorsed brands such as Tommy Chong’s Chong’s Choice oils and edibles, and Lawrence Taylor’s LT Painmaster topicals and oils..just to name a few.
Diamond CBD has been experimenting with delivery vehicles for quite some time now. As one might imagine the company has gained a lot of intelligence related to consumer preferences and product efficacy. The company firmly believes that innovation is what will separate the winners from the losers as the CBD market evolves.
Continual new product development is key One example of the company’s experimentation paying off is their line of CBD-infused honey products. Honey has proved to be quite popular with customers provoking Diamond CBD to create the hybrid honey-infused CBD Honey Tincture under their Liquid Gold brand. The addition of honey to the recipe satiates consumers’ sweet tooth while providing an effective method of delivery.
Another ingredient that has proven popular with Diamond customers is CBD-infused MCT oil.
MCT, or medium-chain triglycerides, are easy to digest and easily metabolized, therefore packing quickly accessible energy. Furthermore, MCTs are not stored as fat in the human body, they do not oxidize into dangerous free-radicals, and they have been shown to improve gut health. In recent years, MCTs have become quite popular with athletes and active adults. Diamond CBD believes that these highly popular advantages, in combination with the long list of purported health benefits provided by hemp CBD, will make for another winning formula.
The main focus of Diamond CBD when it comes to branding is to stay on the cutting edge of digital marketing via social media, email marketing, and content marketing , as well as digital display advertising.
Another important plank in Diamond CBD’s marketing mix is events — both consumer/cultural and industry events where Diamond CBD works the floor to expand its product distribution.
One of Diamond CBD’s favorite places to reach out and touch its audience is the High Times Cannabis Cup.
Diamond CBD will be hawking its wares at the Central Valley event on April 20 in Sacramento, California.
The centerpiece of Diamond’s strategy for creating a buzz around their booth while expanding their social media presence is a contest to attend the event. Diamond CBD will send one lucky winner to Sacramento, including travel, lodging, and admittance.
In order to win the grand prize, entrants can collect points by following Diamond CBD on social media — 3 points, for example, for signing up for their email list, 2 points for following them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter; 2 points for retweeting posts about the contest; and so on. It’s just one example of the creative branding-meets-lead-gen strategies being used by Diamond CBD.
Although Diamond CBD operates its own massive CBD web store, thanks to its internal distribution efforts, their products are also sold by hundreds of online retailers, as well as brick and mortar retailers across the country.
Given the massive elbows that Diamond CBD has grown in the past few years, the company seems poised to take a pole position — at least among the underdogs — in the race for CBD market share.
If you’d like to give CBD a try for yourself, visit DiamondCBD.com , use the coupon code VENTURE50 and you’ll receive a 50 percent discount on any purchase.
Investors can learn more about the company at PotNetworkHolding.com.
Sponsored articles 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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"Dreams won't support PSVR in early access | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/dreams-wont-support-psvr-in-early-access"
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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 Dreams won’t support PSVR in early access Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Dreams.
Good news: the Dreams Early Access launch is just a few weeks away. Bad news: it definitely won’t support PSVR. For now, at least.
Developer Media Molecule confirmed an April 16th launch for the game over on the PlayStation Blog.
The Early Access edition of the game is specifically designed for those interested in creating games. You’ll still be able to download and play other people’s levels, but Media Molecule still has plenty to fix and add to the game in the coming months.
One of these is PSVR support. VR integration has long been promised for Dreams but was absent in this year’s Creator Beta. On the blog, Media Molecule explained that Dreams VR isn’t included in the initial Early Access launch. “It’s still planned for Dreams and we’re super excited for it,” Studio Director Siobhan Reddy wrote. “We’ll be sure to share more details about it as soon as we’re ready.” That’s sad but not unexpected news. The Early Access version will only have a limited number of spaces and will cost $29.99. There won’t be any early pre-orders for the game so it’ll be first-come, first-served on launch day. Media Molecule says it’s a “big limit”, though. Oh, and if you do buy it now you won’t have to get it again when the full version launches.
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’ve long thought Dreams is one of the most important VR releases on the horizon right now. We took part in the beta earlier this year and the possibilities were, quite frankly, stunning. Hopefully it doesn’t take too much longer for the VR support to follow along after Early Access launch.
This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com.
Copyright 2019 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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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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"Control hands-on -- Remedy's next game is easy to, uh, control | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/control-hands-on-remedys-next-game-is-easy-to-uh-control"
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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 Preview Control hands-on — Remedy’s next game is easy to, uh, control 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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Alan Wake and Quantum Break developer Remedy showed off its latest Control action-adventure game at the PAX East event, and I gave it a whirl in my first visit to the fan show in Boston.
The 20-minute demo didn’t reveal any of the story, but I got a good taste for the gameplay on the PlayStation 4. Publisher 505 Games will launch the game on August 27 on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a simultaneous digital launch on the Epic Games store for PC.
Control is a supernatural third-person game, and it feels similar in its gameplay to Quantum Break, which debuted on the Xbox One and Windows in 2016. On the PS4, the game doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles when it comes to PC graphics powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards with lifelike lighting and real-time ray tracing.
But the PS4 version still looks good to me. The demo had a big stamp on the screen that labeled it a “work-in-progress.” 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 entire game takes place inside the setting of the demo in a place called The Oldest House. You play as Jesse Faden, the new director of the Federal Bureau of Control, which is housed inside the house. This so-called house is a big multistory building with marble floors and staircases.
The Federal Bureau of Control is in charge of studying supernatural phenomena, and the game combines a familiar reality with the strange and unexplainable. The bureau has been invaded by some otherworldly threat known as The Hiss. Jesse has to deal with the aftermath of that. Bodies float in the air, and government soldiers with heavy weapons and special suits try to attack Jesse.
She fights back not only with guns but with supernatural powers of her own. If you hold the right bumper of the PS4 controller, you can pick up something that you’re pointing at. Then you can aim at an enemy soldier and releases the object, sending it flying right into the enemy. That’s a lot like what you could do in Quantum Break by manipulating time.
Above: Control requires you to find things in the environment and interact with them.
You can also levitate into the air by holding down the X button on the controller. If you push down on the right stick, you can attack others with a powerful ground pound. But you are not invulnerable. I got shot enough times by the enemies that I died and had to respawn.
If you do enough damage to an enemy, a box will appear by the enemy. If you hold the square button, you’ll be able to take over the enemy and have them fight for you. That makes life easier.
I had a few tasks to do like defeat the enemies, break into an upstairs office, and find a way through a “mirror maze” in one of the rooms. Once, to get an elevator working again, I had to find a green box and plug it into a kind of socket. The game didn’t really tell me how to do that, so I had to ask for help.
There were different kinds of enemies in the basement, which I accessed via the elevator. And there were a variety of boss characters to beat as well. My demo ended before I was able to figure out the mirror maze.
You can tell that this game is built on the same Northlight engine that Remedy used for Quantum Break. Much of the combat resembles the fighting in Quantum Break, and the controls were very simple to learn. So far, Control looks good, has an intriguing story, and it’s easy to play. Let’s hope it really plays that way when it comes out in August.
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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"Rec Room is coming to Oculus Quest | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/arvr/rec-room-is-coming-to-oculus-quest"
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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 Rec Room is coming to Oculus Quest Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Rec Room now has clubhouses.
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Another much-anticipated VR app is on its way to the Oculus Quest headset. Against Gravity’s social VR platform, Rec Room, will come to the device this spring.
Rec Room is a free-to-play platform that allows friends to meet up, play a variety of games and create content together as customized avatars. Players can either meet up in open hang out spaces or play sports games like dodgeball together. You can even take on more elaborate games like co-op adventure quests, paintball, and Rec Room’s take on battle royale.
https://twitter.com/recroom/status/1110935090140340229 We’ve long thought of Rec Room as one of VR’s most important apps. On top of playing together, players can also customize rooms to their own look and then share them with others to provide new types of experiences. In January, we reported that the game had reached over one million players.
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! Against Gravity also confirmed to UploadVR that the Quest version of the game will support cross-play. this is a key feature for Rec Room, allowing those with an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR headset and even a PSVR to meet up online. Adding Quest to that mix should help expand the player base.
Quest is due to launch this spring too, so it’s likely Rec Room will arrive alongside it. The headset costs $399 for a 64GB version but a 128GB device will arrive for $499 too.
This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com.
Copyright 2019 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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"You should measure your bot’s success in pleases and thank yous | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/you-should-measure-your-bots-success-in-pleases-and-thank-yous"
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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 You should measure your bot’s success in pleases and thank yous 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 our data-driven society, metrics are the name of the game. Speed to benefit. Accuracy rates. Time spent on applications. But there is one critical metric that many bot developers are overlooking – users’ Ps and Qs.
A key metric in measuring your bot’s success (and ultimately your user’s satisfaction) is to measure the number of niceties your users say when interacting with it. The goal is to create a bot so good, so accommodating, forthcoming, intuitive, and friendly, that users cannot help but say “thanks” when ending the conversation.
In my work as a voice and conversational user interface engineer, I experiment with emotion engineering as a way to achieve this vision. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned about building a successful bot.
1. Teach your bot to be likeable If your bot is interacting with your customers, then your bot is in the service industry. Much like how hairstylists or waiters must use sound judgment and be likable to their customers, so should your bot. Likeability becomes the ultimate differentiator in an otherwise non-differentiable experience.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! We’ve all had negative experiences interacting with bots where they seem, well robotic, in their response. And while they still accomplish the task you are trying to achieve, it is a missed opportunity to delight your customers and connect with them on behalf of your company in a more human way.
Voice first or voice only experiences don’t have a traditional (graphical) user interface. In this new environment of ambient-computing, form factor or looks hardly matter. Not only what a virtual says, but equally how it says it, will determine success. It is more important than ever to look at emerging emotion engineering methodologies and tools like software library Vokaturi , for example, which measures the emotion in a user’s voice to build bots that are empathetic, likable, and confidence-inspiring.
2. Teach your bot to listen One of the first steps to creating a likable bot is to teach your bot how to truly listen to your users. This means going beyond translating words to a certain action; you need to analyze the sentiment and intent in a user’s request.
Explore ways to apply techniques and off-the-shelf tools such as Stanford’s CoreNLP Sentiment Analyzer or VADER Sentiment Analysis to validate that a response carries the intended attitude. This can include analyzing both emotion (such as sadness, anger, joy, fear), and engagement (excited, polite, frustrated) in what people write or say.
Through these methodologies, you can derive and gain a deeper understanding of the connotation, emotional sentiment, and action behind the words a user shares when interacting with a bot, and ultimately determine how a user is feeling at the moment.
3. Teach your bot to care Once you understand the user’s intent and the emotion behind the intent, you can experiment with training your bots to respond in an empathetic way, recognizing how the user is feeling and tailoring the response to address both the intent and the emotion. For example, my team experimented with how a bot could respond to the question, “Can I afford to eat at a restaurant tonight?” We iterated from a negative or neutral-sounding response, “There is still $70 left in your restaurant budget, but you are significantly overspent in other categories,” to a more humanized response of, “you have $70 remaining in your restaurant budget, but please realize, overall you are in the red.” You can use the same tools you use to analyze users’ responses to review and validate bots’ responses. Remarkably, this approach works beyond a text-based content. For instance, my team found that acoustical sentiment analysis recognizes emotion in sound samples without considering any recognized words, allowing us to analyze responses we generate for voice user interfaces (VUI). Before synthesizing, we can supplement text with the Speech Synthesis Markup Language, programming it to respond with either a positive, apologetic, or confident sounding message.
For example, using speech synthesizers, here is the SSML without sentiment analysis: And here is what it becomes with sentiment synthesis: As we approach the next generation of ambient technology, we will be interacting with bots and AIs more than ever before. We should expect this will impact our communications styles with them as well, including fewer social niceties than we typically extend to humans. While smart speakers may hear “please” and “thanks” less often than before, when we create bots that respond kindly, considerately, and empathetically, they deserve a user’s politeness. The number of “thank you”s a bot hears can be a critical component to tell you if you’re on the right track to creating a world-class customer care bot.
Wolf Paulus is Principal Engineer at Intuit , focused on embedded, conversational, and X Reality technologies. He helps to accelerate the discovery and adoption of emerging technologies. He previously worked on the mobile print experience for HP and was a Distinguished Engineer at Motorola Mobility, where he worked on the Google Android platform. He is on the advisory committee at the University of California, Irvine.
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 convergence of 5G and AI: A venture capitalist’s view | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-convergence-of-5g-and-ai-a-venture-capitalists-view"
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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 convergence of 5G and AI: A venture capitalist’s view Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A 5G sign at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 28, 2018.
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As an emerging-technology investor, I am always on the lookout for new technologies that can improve existing markets and enable new ones.
That’s why 5G really intrigues me. This advanced digital cellular network protocol opens up new frequency spectrum, bringing with it much higher throughput and latency performance. This positions 5G as a potentially game-changing technology and investment opportunity that could fuel a new generation of applications and solve some of the world’s biggest problems.
5G is not just “4G but better.” It taps new spectrum that will drive innovative business opportunities and use cases. For example, in the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands, a.k.a. the “millimeter wave band,” reams of new bandwidth could transform the communications carrier landscape as we know it while further improving the end-user experience of mobility.
Before 5G, wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon couldn’t compete with, say, a Comcast’s cable business. There just wasn’t enough bandwidth or coverage to help them push into that market. That will change with the lightning fast data rates of 5G, which best today’s wireline (cable, fiber, DSL) speeds while clocking in approximately 100 times faster than 4G LTE. And, in an instance of turnabout-is-fair-play, cable providers can ride the 5G wave to get in on the wireless carriers’ action, extending high-speed service from the home to the coffee shop to the traditional workplace.
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 means consumers, mobile workers, and the enterprise – remember, businesses are hungry for 5G, too – will simply access 5G everywhere they need it – all while benefiting from better coverage and performance.
AI at the edge These evolutionary improvements also set the stage for revolutionary application development and new, innovation-driven markets. That’s where AI is entering the picture and converging with 5G – specifically at the “edge.” One tantalizing example of this is autonomous vehicles.
If AI and 5G had a baby, its name would be “AV.” Autonomous vehicles are essentially data centers on wheels. If you look at them closely, you’ll notice they are loaded with multiple 4G LTE modems, because, with “brains in the device,” they require intelligence at the edge. That requires the rich and rapid movement of data that 5G is uniquely positioned to offer.
But the other thing that excites me about 5G is that it will not only be the protocol that launches a thousand new high-throughput applications and use cases like AVs, it will also drive important new low-bandwidth applications. Put another way, because of the new frequencies opened up by 5G, there will be new opportunities for innovation up and down the spectrum.
For example, on the low, or narrow-band side (think 900 MHz), there is a huge opportunity to provide connectivity for low-power, low-bandwidth IoT devices. Today this is a market addressed by a patchwork of proprietary connectivity technologies like LoRa and SigFox, but that will change with 5G as the new unifying standard.
Here, too, there is a potent AI play. A key IoT use case is in industrial devices, where low-cost sensors are put on machines to measure performance, enabling companies to avoid expensive fixes through predictive maintenance. These devices don’t depend on sharing lots of information with the cloud – they do their AI work locally, but on a small scale – so they don’t need a ton of bandwidth. They do, however, need reliable coverage and throughput in hard-to-reach places, and the 5G protocol is poised to deliver it.
With more and more AI happening on the edge, 5G holds the promise of being the unifying connectivity layer for a new generation of transformative technologies. One country aggressively pushing the exploration of this convergence is China, and the breakthroughs it is achieving are worth watching.
China works on a grand scale. We have traffic problems in the West – China’s are bigger. We have pollution problems here – China’s are worse. The success of China’s investments in smart city technologies depends on AI and a fast mobile communication infrastructure like 5G.
China has already produced some of the biggest unicorns in AI. 5G networks will provide the backbone communication infrastructure to connect its autonomous vehicles, security cameras, and beyond.
I bring up China in the context of 5G and AI convergence to underscore the scale of the opportunity ahead. In IoT, we are talking about improving how billions of intelligent devices work and are maintained, transforming industrial processes along the way; with autonomous vehicles, we are talking about millions of smart vehicles conveying billions of people around the world – the future of travel.
And these are just two examples. I haven’t even mentioned the spectrum in between.
Ben Yu is a Managing Director at Sierra Ventures , a Silicon Valley firm that has invested $1.9 billion in enterprise and emerging technology companies over three decades.
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: Microsoft needs to make the case for Cortana -- or leave her to Halo | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/probeat-microsoft-needs-to-make-the-case-for-cortana-or-leave-her-to-halo"
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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: Microsoft needs to make the case for Cortana — or leave her to Halo 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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There wasn’t that much Cortana news this week, but then again there never is. While Microsoft’s plans for Cortana haven’t changed, they are still incredibly puzzling. We know the company has somewhat lost interest in Cortana for consumers and is pushing Alexa instead , so discontinuing the Cortana bot in Skype this week was no surprise. We also know offerings like Microsoft Cognitive Services in the enterprise is key to the company’s strategy, so the Adobe news around voice AI this week is also in line. But Cortana’s overall future is murky, at best.
We asked Microsoft for comment about the Cortana bot in Skype. The company confirmed it was going away, and that other bots weren’t being discontinued, but didn’t elaborate on the reasoning.
“We are constantly evaluating and testing our products to ensure they offer the best and most productive experiences,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We are discontinuing the Cortana bot within Skype, but Cortana suggestions are still available. We remain committed to the future of what Cortana’s helpfulness can help our users achieve within Skype. Our goal with Cortana is to help people get things done quickly and with ease, regardless of where they are in their day, and we are excited for what is to come next.” And yet everyone knows why. Cortana never took off with consumers. Aside from the Harmon Kardon Invoke , nobody wants to make a Cortana smart speaker — not even Microsoft.
Alexa and Google Assistant dominate smart speakers, Google Assistant and Siri own the car ( although Alexa is trying ), and Google Assistant is winning on phones. So where does that leave Cortana? 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! Confusing Cortana strategy Microsoft doesn’t seem to care that Cortana has “lost” the AI assistant war. And yet, not only is it keeping Cortana alive in the consumer realm, it’s still pushing Cortana into new areas.
Cortana still exists on the Xbox , the platform from which the AI assistant got its name, but Microsoft refuses to say how many gamers actively use it. The next Windows 10 update will decouple Cortana from search — an admission that nobody wants Cortana in their desktop search experience — but will not remove it completely. And Microsoft continues to introduce new products with Cortana built in, like the Surface Headphones that debuted late last year.
This is what makes Microsoft’s strategy so confusing. Microsoft is curtailing Cortana offerings, reorganizing existing Cortana functionality, and launching Cortana products. Additionally, CEO Satya Nadella wants to see Cortana available in other places, like Google Assistant.
No clear Cortana use case But Microsoft cannot seem to convince anyone why they would want that. What benefit is there to querying Cortana in Google Assistant? What can she do that Google Assistant can’t? At Microsoft’s Build developers conference last year, Amazon and Microsoft showed off the Alexa and Cortana partnership.
Presumably, we can look at this interaction to see what Cortana in Google Assistant would offer.
Cortana did nothing special in that demo. She was summoned via Alexa, answered a question about the presenter’s schedule, and sent an email. The same thing happened when the Alexa-Cortana public preview rolled out in August: Microsoft gave no clear use case. The pitch for Cortana can’t simply be that she has access to your work account.
Nobody needs or wants that.
Microsoft needs to make Cortana useful. She needs to stand out as the obvious option for something.
If she can’t, she should return to the Halo universe.
My colleague Khari Johnson argues that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Even if Cortana goes away, Microsoft’s dominance in enterprise and productivity applications will remain. Companies will continue to leverage the intelligence underlying Cortana, via Microsoft Cognitive Services and other tools the company offers. And of course Microsoft will offer voice AI, automated transcription, and so on across its own enterprise products.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
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.
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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"MIT CSAIL's machine learning algorithm helps predict patterns in large data streams | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/mit-csails-machine-learning-algorithm-helps-to-predict-patterns-in-large-data-streams"
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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 CSAIL’s machine learning algorithm helps predict patterns in large data streams Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn LearnedSketch can generalize its knowledge to unseen items. Here, it automatically learns how popular different search terms are by clustering, and seems to base its decisions on more than just the length of the search phrase.
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Ever heard of the “ Britney Spears problem “? Contrary to what it sounds like, it’s got nothing to do with the dalliances of the rich and famous. Rather, it’s a computing puzzle related to data tracking: Precisely tailoring a data-rich service, like a search engine or fiber internet connection, to individual users hypothetically requires tracking every packet sent to and from the service provider, which needless to say isn’t practical. To get around this, most companies leverage algorithms that make guesses about the frequency of data exchanged by hashing it (i.e., divvying it up into pieces). But this necessarily sacrifices nuance — telling patterns that emerge naturally in large data volumes fly under the radar.
Luckily, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) believe they’ve devised a viable alternative that relies on machine learning. In a newly published paper (“ Learning-Based Frequency Estimation Algorithms “), they describe a system — dubbed LearnedSketch, because of the way it “sketches” data in a data stream — that predicts if specific data elements will appear more frequently than others and, if they in fact do, autonomously separates them from the rest of the hashed portions.
The paper’s authors say it’s the first machine learning-based approach not only for frequency estimation, but for streaming algorithms, a class of algorithms in which input data is presented as a sequence and can be examined only in a few passes. They’re popularly used in security systems and natural language processing pipelines, among many applications.
“[S]treaming algorithms typically assume generic data and do not leverage useful patterns or properties of their input,” the team explains. “For example, in text data, the word frequency is known to be inversely correlated with the length of the word. Analogously, in network data, certain applications tend to generate more traffic than others. If such properties can be harnessed, one could design frequency estimation algorithms that are much more efficient than the existing ones.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In experiments, LearnedSketch showed an aptitude for detecting and isolating rich bits of data. For instance, trained on 210 million data packets from a Tier 1 ISP, it outperformed existing approaches for estimating the amount of internet traffic in a network, achieving upwards of 57 percent less error. And given 3.8 million unique AOL queries, it managed to estimate the number of queries for an internet search term with upwards of 71 percent less error.
Moreover, LearnedSketch was highly generalizable; the structures it learned could be applied to items it hadn’t seen before. In one experiment that tasked it with determining which internet connections had the most traffic, it clustered different connections by the prefix of their destination IP address, indicating an awareness of the rule that internet subscribers which generate large traffic tend to share a particular prefix.
The researchers believe that LearnedSketch (or an AI system like it) might someday be used to track trending topics on social media, or to identify troublesome spikes in web traffic and improve ecommerce sites’ product recommendations. But really, said PhD student and coauthor Chen-Yu Hsu, the sky’s the limit.
“These kinds of results show that machine learning is very much an approach that could be used alongside the classic algorithmic paradigms like ‘divide and conquer’ and dynamic programming,” Hsu added. “We combine the model with classical algorithms so that our algorithm inherits worst-case guarantees from the classical algorithms naturally.” The research is scheduled to be presented in May at the International Conference on Learning in New Orleans.
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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"Google: Play Protect cut harmful Android app installs by 20% in 2018 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-play-protect-cut-harmful-android-app-installs-by-20-in-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 Google: Play Protect cut harmful Android app installs by 20% in 2018 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Android Pie 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.
It’s that time of year again: Google published its annual Android Security & Privacy Year in Review , the holistic report detailing the ways the Mountain View company has made the over 2 billion devices running Android more secure. It’s a massive tome totaling 30 pages, but a few metrics stand out.
Google says that Google Play Protect, Android’s AI-driven built-in defense mechanism that scans over 50 billion apps every day on-device and upwards of 500,000 in the cloud, substantially cut down on the number of Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs) in Google Play. Last year, only 0.08 percent of devices that used Google Play exclusively for app downloads were affected by PHAs, and even devices that installed apps from outside of Play — 0.68 percent of which were affected by one or more PHAs, down from 0.80 percent in 2017 — saw a 15 percent reduction in malware.
In fact, Play Protect prevented 1.6 billion PHA installation attempts from outside of Google Play in 2018, Google says. Installation attempts outside of Google Play fell by 20 percent from the previous year, and 73 percent of PHA installations were successfully stopped compared with 71 percent in 2017 and 59 percent in 2016.
In all, 0.45 percent of Android devices running Play Protect installed PHAs in 2018 compared with 0.56 percent of devices in 2017, equating to a 20 percent year-over-year improvement. Moreover, Google says, the ratio of PHA installs to total installs decreased by roughly 38 percent from the year prior.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Play Protect isn’t the only tool that’s aided in the fight against PHAs. Build Test Suite (BTS) — a service that scans for preinstalled PHAs across software builds for partner OEM devices with Google services — prevented 242 builds with PHAs from entering the ecosystem, and Google claims that it’s helped over 300,000 developers remediate more than 1,000,000 apps to date.
Another change that made a difference? New alerts from Google Play that warn users about mobile unwanted software (MUwS) — apps that aren’t strictly malware, but which surreptitiously collect data like phone numbers, email addresses, info about installed apps, and third-party account data — that are installed outside of Google Play. Google says that the total number of install attempts coming from MUwS apps declined from 2.09 percent in 2017 to 0.75 percent in 2018.
Also worth noting: Security updates generally made their way to devices at a higher frequency than in previous years. The fourth quarter of 2018 had 84 percent more devices receiving a security update than in the same quarter the prior year, and as of December 2018, over 95 percent of Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices were running a security update from the past 90 days.
Lastly, Google made inroads in combating preinstalled PHAs. It says that now, every new Android-certified device goes through the same app scanning process as apps on Google Play, and that its security scanner “looks for other common security and privacy issues” and denies device certification until manufacturers fix glaring problems. And in 2018, it increased its payouts to security researchers — they surpassed $3 million in total.
Taken together, last year’s efforts tangibly impacted the ecosystem for the better, Google says. It reports that 0.92 percent of sideloaded apps were PHAs, compared to 1.48 percent in 2017, and that all PHA categories saw “strong declines” outside Google Play.
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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"Experimental AI can steal PINs and passwords by listening to finger taps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/experimental-ai-can-steal-pins-and-passwords-by-listening-to-finger-taps"
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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 Experimental AI can steal PINs and passwords by listening to finger taps 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.
Keyloggers aren’t the only way malicious hackers can get at your phone or tablet’s passcode. In a preprint paper (“ A new acoustic side channel on smartphones “) published on Arxiv.org this week, researchers describe a novel attack that recovers characters typed on a virtual keyboard from sounds generated by finger taps.
“We found the device’s microphone(s) can recover this wave and ‘hear’ the finger’s touch, and the wave’s distortions are characteristic of the tap’s location on the screen,” the paper’s coauthors wrote. “Hence, by recording audio through the built-in microphone(s), a malicious app can infer text as the user enters it on their device.” Acoustic attacks targeting keyboards aren’t new, the researchers note — previous studies have investigated the use of mics to identify physical keys by their unique physical characteristics or defects. But soft keyboards naturally make for more difficult targets, because each tap happens on the same surface.
The team’s approach employs an app that recovers the sounds of taps and correlates them with keystrokes, using a machine learning algorithm that’s trained offline and tuned to a particular smartphone or tablet model. Architecting the algorithm required overcoming a significant engineering challenge: It needed to be able to account for the interfering vibrations produced by tapping fingertips. In the end, the researchers cross-correlated the feedback sound to disambiguate it from the vibration feedback, and subtracted out the vibration data.
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 a model in hand, they set about calculating the time difference between the reception of the sound signals on the dual-mic devices they tested: LG’s Nexus 5 and Samsung’s Nexus 9. Roughly 70 percent of the recorded taps — which were in the frequency ranges 1,300-1,700Hz, 8000-8500Hz, 4000-4400 Hz, and 60-70 Hz — were fed into a machine learning classifier, while the remaining 30 percent were reserved for testing.
To validate their approach, the researchers developed an Android app that had users enter letters, words, and digits into fields while it collected audio through the on-device microphones. About 45 test subjects used it in environments with a fair amount of ambient noise, including a common room, a reading room, and a library.
Ten participants were asked to press each of nine digits (1 to 9) ten times in a random ordered, and 10 others were told to type 200 unique four-digit PINs. A third group was instructed to type letters (also randomly ordered), and a fourth was told to type five-character words from an open source data set.
The researchers report that, with two microphones, the model correctly predicted single digits three times better than a random guess in the worst case and 100 percent of digits in the best case. Moreover, it recovered 54 percent of PINs after 10 attempts and 91 out of 150 four-digit PINs in 20 attempts. Where letters and words were concerned, it outperformed a random guess by a factor of three with a single microphone. More alarmingly, it managed to recover seven words on the Nexus 5 and 19 on the Nexus 9 in 27 passwords within 10 attempts.
That’s despite the fact that the mic configurations aren’t identical — the Nexus 5’s primary mic is located on the bottom, opposite the second one on the top, while the Nexus 9’s second microphone is on the right side.
“This illustrates the hazards of reasoning about smartphone sandboxing given the complexity of modern platforms, as well as the need for a more realistic threat model for modern hardware,” the paper’s authors wrote.
They list a number of ways the attack might be mitigated — for instance, with physical switches that allow users to switch off the microphones, mics that have lower sampling frequencies, and additional glass layers on top of screens that could absorb most finger tap noise — but concede that the most obvious solutions have design and usability drawbacks. They instead posit (1) a mechanism that reports which sensors are active, and (2) “a secure attention sequence” for passwords or other sensitive text entry that blocks all sensors temporarily.
“Mobile devices may need a richer capability model, a more user-friendly notification system for sensor usage and a more thorough evaluation of the information leaked by the underlying hardware,” they concluded. “Until these (or other mitigations) are implemented in the platform, app developers should consider the use of tactical jamming if PIN theft via side channels is ever deployed at scale.” 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's Alexa for Business Blueprints lets employees make custom voice apps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/amazons-alexa-for-business-blueprints-lets-employees-make-custom-voice-apps"
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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’s Alexa for Business Blueprints lets employees make custom voice apps 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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Use Alexa in your place of work? There’s cause for minor celebration: Today marks the launch of Alexa for Business Blueprints , a set of dozens of preconfigured templates for Amazon’s intelligent assistant that let customers create and publish private skills without having to write code. They’re currently available in the U.S., with additional territories presumably on the way.
As Amazon product marketing manager Ben Grossman explains in a blog post , Alexa for Business Blueprints stay within workplaces — they can’t be used on devices outside of an organization — and any employee can use them to submit voice app requests. How? Simply by signing in with an Amazon account, filling in the requests and responses fields, and supplying an Alexa for Business organization identifier (or ARN). It’s up to IT administrators to review and selectively enable apps for rooms (or the entire organization) as they come in.
A few of the available Blueprints address work-related questions like “What’s the guest Wi-Fi password?”, “What are the hours for IT?”, and “When does open enrollment start?” Others cover pertinent subjects like office layout (“Alexa, ask Team Guide, where’s the mailing center?”) and equipment setup (“How do I set up corporate email on my phone?”).
Coinciding with the rollout of Alexa for Business Blueprints, two new Skills Blueprints have been added to the Alexa Skills Blueprints website under a new Business category: a Business Q&A Blueprint for custom questions and answers, and an Onboard Guide Blueprint to handle new hire questions.
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 says that already, Amazon for Business users like Glidewell Dental plan to use the Blueprints to keep staff updated with company information and events, and that Saint Louis University and Emerson University hope to drive student and faculty engagement and support curriculum. “[S]ome companies attempting to develop custom Alexa skills found they didn’t have the resources to build their own private skills, which can take several months to design and release to their organization,” Grossman wrote. “[Now,] anyone at the office can contribute to creating useful Alexa skills for the organization.” Alexa for Business made its debut two years ago at Amazon Web Services’ re:Invent conference. It allows enterprise users to schedule meeting rooms (with third-party services such as Cisco, Polycom, Zoom), share itinerary information (through Concur), check voicemail messages, and quickly see if meeting rooms are available, and it enables company admins to control users’ settings and capabilities through a web dashboard. Beyond traditional office environments, Amazon has pitched it as a way to manage Echo speakers in places like hotels and dorm rooms.
Today’s launch comes months after Amazon introduced personal Blueprints for personal Alexa skills , which are assigned to Alexa-enabled devices registered to a specific Amazon account. Like voice apps created with Alexa for Business Blueprints, they don’t appear among the tens of thousands of third-party skills in the Alexa Skills Store.
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"AI will be a blessing, not a threat, to consumer privacy | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-will-be-a-blessing-not-a-threat-to-consumer-privacy"
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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 AI will be a blessing, not a threat, to consumer privacy 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.
Real-world applications of artificial intelligence are skyrocketing. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patent submissions related to AI nearly tripled between 2013 and 2017 to more than 55,000 applications. This rise in patenting activity reflects the gold rush currently underway in the realm of AI. We can expect to see it becoming essential across almost every industry.
The rapid rise in AI applications has also sparked concern that such technologies pose a threat to consumer privacy by letting companies observe users more closely. But I believe we will actually see quite the opposite effect: Rather than delving deeper into the personal lives of consumers, AI could become actually grant people more privacy.
With great power… In marketing, I’ve heard some people say that applications of AI have been all talk and little action. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Every company executive I speak with cites AI as one of his or her company’s top three marketing priorities — even above other hot concepts like blockchain. The desire for AI in marketing is high, and companies are beginning to invest in this realm.
That said, there’s still a great deal of confusion surrounding concepts and terminology when you discuss AI within the marketing field. In fact, I’d say about half of what is referred to as “AI” within industry presentations and panel discussions isn’t AI at all, but rather simple algorithms. This isn’t a trivial distinction. With algorithms, the output is only as good as the data continually fed into it. With AI, the system learns, evolves and extrapolates over time. It can come to conclusions that weren’t initially fed into it.
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 distinction is important because, over the next few years, we’re going to see many areas currently controlled by algorithms become AI-driven instead. Think about the personalization of ad content, for example. Algorithmically-generated dynamic ads have been in use for quite some time. But in the future, AI will help to generate these ads on an individual basis and, thus, achieve higher response rates.
… Comes great responsibility It’s understandable that the concept of true one-to-one marketing raises privacy questions. With the GDPR already in place — and with the upcoming ePrivacy regulation in the EU and the California Consumer Privacy Act in the U.S. — doesn’t personalized advertising powered by artificial intelligence fall by the wayside? Quite the opposite, actually.
In reality, AI doesn’t have to have anything to do with personal data.
By using AI (versus simple algorithms) to target advertising more effectively, the importance of personal data will decrease. If an advertiser can reliably identify a consumer type based on online behavior, then the advertiser does not even have to know who that person is in order to deliver the optimal ad. That’s the power of AI and its next-gen learning capabilities. It will be able to determine tendencies and recommendations from users’ online behavior, thereby generating ads that are perfectly created and placed. At present, advertisers require personal data to achieve the same effect. AI can help that take place anonymously.
Of course, this isn’t to say that data collection and regulation are going to become obsolete. When companies interact directly with consumers, they’re still going to want to collect data that enables them to deepen the relationship. But these first-party data relationships are desirable on both sides and well understood by consumers. It’s the behind-the-scenes collection, selling, and trading of data — the activities that most disturb consumers and regulators today — that are going to become far less relevant in an AI-driven marketing world.
As with any emerging technology, AI carries the potential for exploitation. That’s why raising awareness around AI capabilities and real-world applications is so important. As in so many areas, transparency needs to be our industry’s guiding principle when it comes to AI applications in marketing. By emphasizing collaboration and the elevation of good actors within the industry, we can guide new AI capabilities to a place where they alleviate, rather than worsen, consumer concerns around privacy.
Arndt Groth is President at Smaato.
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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"AI Weekly: Will Amazon's cosponsored NSF solicitation help or warp AI research? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-weekly-will-amazons-cosponsored-nsf-solicitation-help-or-warp-ai-research"
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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: Will Amazon’s cosponsored NSF solicitation help or warp AI research? 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.
This week, in what might have been construed as a gesture of goodwill, Amazon announced that it would partner with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to commit up to $10 million in research grants over the next three years to develop systems focused on “fairness in AI.” But the intervening days brought debate rather than praise as researchers questioned the Seattle company’s true motives — and its methods.
They quickly pointed out that Amazon would only contribute a part of the $7.6 million in total rewards, and that this portion might be provided via an “agreement” or “contract.” And they noted that, before Amazon signs on the dotted line, it’ll be afforded a chance to review the budget and to negotiate terms, and to provide access to Amazon researchers who would act as project advisors.
That on its face isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But Amazon doesn’t have a sterling reputation when it comes to AI fairness.
A recent MIT study found that Rekognition — Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) object detection API — was incapable of reliably determining the sex of people with darker-skinned faces in certain scenarios. (Amazon disputed — and continues to dispute — those findings, and says that in internal tests of an updated version of Rekognition, it observed “no difference” in gender classification accuracy across all ethnicities.) And this past summer, the ACLU reported that in a test involving a public data set of 25,000 mugshots, Rekognition misidentified 28 members of Congress, including 11 people of color, as criminals.
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 researchers like University of Washington assistant professor Nicholas Weber, the NSF solicitation thus feels disingenuous.
“[Computer] science has only really started to do this in the last two years,” he told VentureBeat in a phone interview, referring to the cosponsorship. “It puts us in an odd arrangement — it’s unclear what the responsibilities to researchers are when we submit a budget to the NSF. [And] it allows [Amazon] to piggyback on the NSF’s peer review process — what many consider to be the gold standard of evaluation and review.” “Amazon is doing the right thing, trying to work with researchers to understand [a problem] that they’ve mostly exacerbated,” Weber added. “But there’s a better way to approach this: Just give money to the National Science Foundation.” Indeed, in a recently released draft of its 20-year roadmap for AI research in the U.S., the Computing Community Consortium — the organization whose professed goal is to catalyze the computing industry to pursue high-impact research — says that achieving the full potential of AI technologies will require “significant sustained investment” and a “radical transformation” of the AI research enterprise.
“Universities now lack the massive resources (unique datasets, special-purpose computing, extensive knowledge graphs, well-trained AI engineers, etc.) that have been acquired or developed by major IT companies,” it wrote. “These are fundamental capabilities to build forward-looking AI research programs.” Corporate co-sponsorship of research, done correctly, can yield tremendous technological advances. Weber points out that Intel and VMWare — the latter of which partnered with the NSF to investigate edge computing data infrastructure — “allow both … fields [to move] forward” through contributions in the form of software and hardware.
“[They’ve tended] to be about giving [grantees] using their products [support],” he said. “Amazon is not in a position to give cutting-edge artificial intelligence. [It’s a] distributionally unfair outcome.” History is filled with examples of research tainted by corporate influence. Soft drink brands like Coca-Cola have invested millions in studies arguing about the tenuousness of the link between obesity and fizzy drinks. The tobacco industry became a major sponsor of medical science in the 1950s, a strategy famously advanced by John W. Hill of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. And oil giants such as Shell, Chevron, and BP regularly (and generously) support Harvard and MIT research.
AI’s nascency has shielded it from much of the interference that’s plagued its academic forebears. To avoid falling into the same traps, it’ll have to learn to recognize the pitfalls they didn’t.
For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI Channel.
Thanks for reading, Kyle Wiggers AI Staff Writer P.S. Please enjoy this video of Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot stacking boxes in a warehouse.
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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"Uber and Lyft plan to offer some drivers shares in their IPOs | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/uber-and-lyft-plan-to-offer-some-drivers-shares-in-their-ipos"
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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 Uber and Lyft plan to offer some drivers shares in their IPOs Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A driver displays Uber and Lyft ride sharing signs in his car windscreen in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 23, 2016.
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( Reuters ) — Uber and Lyft plan to offer cash bonuses to some of their most active drivers with the option to purchase shares in the ride-hailing firms’ highly anticipated Wall Street debuts, a bold effort to improve driver relations as the companies transition to the public markets.
Both programs will offer drivers who have driven the longest and logged the most miles for the companies the rare chance to purchase stock at the initial public offering, before shares begin trading on public stock exchanges, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter. Such transactions are normally unavailable to retail investors.
The move is the latest bid by Uber and Lyft to improve relations with drivers who have long contested their classification as independent contractors and what they have claimed are low wages and poor treatment by the companies. Both companies still face thousands of driver arbitration claims over their employment status.
Lyft plans to give drivers who have logged at least 10,000 rides on the platform $1,000 that can be kept as a cash bonus or used to buy the IPO shares, one of the sources said on Thursday. The plan is an effort to reward the longest-serving and most active drivers, who do not enjoy employee benefits such as health insurance and reimbursement for expenses.
A driver who has completed 20,000 rides would be eligible for $10,000 in cash or an equivalent amount of stock, the person said. It was not clear how many drivers would qualify, but there is no cap on the program.
Many drivers in urban areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles drive for both Uber and Lyft, and some could stand to benefit from both stock programs.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Uber and Lyft’s driver stock plans earlier on Thursday.
Lyft plans to launch its “roadshow,” when the company will pitch prospective investors to buy stock in the offering, the week of March 18, Reuters reported last week. The roadshow is expected to last about two weeks, likely making Lyft the first Wall Street debut from a group of highly valued, venture-backed companies all expected to go public this year.
Both Uber and Lyft confidentially filed for an IPO in December. Lyft is expected to publicly release its regulatory paperwork this week, and it likely will contain details on the driver stock reward program.
Uber, Lyft’s much larger rival, still needs several more weeks to prepare for its IPO. The company is working out the details on a broad program for drivers that would give a significant portion of its 3 million active drivers and couriers globally a cash bonus, which they can use to purchase shares at the IPO price, according to three of the people with knowledge of the matter.
The stock program will be much more complicated than Lyft’s since it involves many more drivers and countries with different securities laws, and it will run into the millions of dollars, one of these people said.
For drivers in overseas markets where securities laws will prohibit them from purchasing shares, keeping the cash will be their only option, another of the sources said.
The cash bonuses will be doled out on a sliding scale based on the driver’s length of service and number of trips or deliveries, this person said. The target numbers and the cutoff date to meet those targets are still being worked out and will be set prior to the IPO.
Stock prices often pop after trading begins, making for a lucrative payday for shareholders who are able to buy at the IPO price. However, many drivers are likely to keep the cash, said Harry Campbell, creator of the Rideshare Guy blog and podcast, which offers advice to drivers.
“Most drivers are on a pretty tight budget so I think it will be tempting for them to take the cash bonus,” he said.
Uber last year sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asking for a rule change so the company could award shares to drivers while it was still privately held. Such programs had been problematic in the past. New York-based ride-hailing startup Juno promised equity to drivers, which drew SEC scrutiny. Juno ended up voiding the equity program after it was acquired, prompting a lawsuit from drivers.
Lyft expects to be valued at between $20 billion and $25 billion in its IPO, up from its current $15 billion valuation. Uber is seeking a valuation that could reach $120 billion, up from its $76 billion valuation in the private market.
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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"Daimler and BMW enter long-term partnership for self-driving cars | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/daimler-and-bmw-enter-long-term-partnership-for-self-driving-cars"
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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 Daimler and BMW enter long-term partnership for self-driving cars Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Bosch/Daimler self-driving car.
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German car giants Daimler and BMW have announced a “long-term strategic cooperation” around self-driving cars that will see the duo collaborating to bring new automated driving technology to market by the mid-2020s.
In an announcement today, Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler and BMW — which operates a number of brands, including Mini and Rolls-Royce — revealed plans to develop next-generation technologies for driver-assistance systems, parking, and automated driving on highways up to SAE level 4.
Collaborations It has become increasingly clear that getting self-driving cars to market is a problem bigger than any one company can manage on its own, which is why we’ve seen a growing number of partnerships — often between rivals. Volkswagen and Ford are already exploring codeveloping autonomous and electric cars; BMW is working with Fiat Chrysler and Intel; SoftBank and Toyota are in cahoots to develop car services that rely on self-driving technology; and the Renault-Nissan alliance is partnering with Google.
Countless other automaker and technology partnerships are permeating the burgeoning autonomous driving realm, as well.
Despite their rivalry, Daimler and BMW have a history of working together to keep apace with younger technology upstarts. Last year, the companies revealed they were to merge their ride-hailing and car-sharing units to help stave off incumbents such as Uber, and last week they announced a $1.15 billion joint investment to boost urban mobility services. Back in 2016, the duo formed part of a consortium to acquire Nokia’s Here mapping unit for $3 billion — a move very much designed to ensure that they have sufficient location technologies to keep Google at arm’s length.
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 pooling their collective resources, Daimler and BMW want to ensure they are not left behind by other players in the self-driving vehicle sphere, including Google’s sister company, Waymo.
“Combining the key expertise of our two companies will boost our innovative strength and speed up the spread of this technology,” said Klaus Fröhlich, who heads up BMW’s board of development.
Safety will be a key factor in determining how quickly autonomous vehicles make it onto roads, and Daimler considers this collaboration pivotal to ensuring safe deployment of its self-driving cars.
“Our top priority is safety,” added Ola Källenius, who serves as member of the board of management at Daimler. “Instead of individual, standalone solutions, we want to develop a reliable overall system that offers noticeable added value for customers. Working with the right partners, we want to make significant advances in enhancing the performance of this technology and bring it safely on the road.” In short, combining their collective smarts should go some way toward helping both companies get up to speed with their development of self-driving cars.
It’s worth noting here that the two companies already have separate autonomous car partnerships and programs in play, and they said that this latest collaboration won’t have any impact on their other initiatives. Moreover, the two firms said that in their push to create a “scalable platform for automated driving,” they are open to working with additional technology companies and automotive manufacturers.
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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"Google has helped 300,000 Android developers fix security vulnerabilities in over 1 million apps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/google-has-helped-300000-android-developers-fix-security-vulnerabilities-in-over-1-million-apps"
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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 helped 300,000 Android developers fix security vulnerabilities in over 1 million apps Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Android Pie 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.
Google today offered an update on its Application Security Improvement Program.
First launched five years ago, the program has now helped more than 300,000 developers fix more than 1 million apps on Google Play. In 2018 alone, it resulted in over 30,000 developers fixing over 75,000 apps.
Google originally created the Application Security Improvement Program to harden Android apps. The goal was simple: help Android developers build apps without known vulnerabilities, thus improving the overall ecosystem.
Application Security Improvement Program When an Android app is submitted to the Google Play store, the company scans it for a variety of vulnerabilities. If one is present, Google lets the developer know and helps them fix it. Google doesn’t distribute those apps to Android users until the issues are resolved.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Google compares the program to a health checkup: “Think of it like a routine physical. If there are no problems, the app runs through our normal tests and continues on the process to being published in the Play Store. If there is a problem, however, we provide a diagnosis and next steps to get back to healthy form.” More vulnerabilities By securing Android apps, Google is really beefing up Android security overall. It doesn’t matter if the security vulnerabilities were included accidentally or for nefarious reasons — if Google knows about them, they don’t get through.
The program covers a broad range of issues in Android apps, from vulnerabilities in certain versions of popular libraries to unsafe TLS/SSL certificate validation. And Google continues to expand it. In 2018, the company deployed warnings for six additional security vulnerability classes: SQL injection, file-based cross-site scripting, cross-app scripting, leaked third-party credentials, scheme hijacking, and JavaScript interface injection.
Given the success, Google plans to keep investing in the program. As new exploits emerge, the company will add them to the program’s warning list.
Google has made multiple Android security-related announcements this month alone. The company shared 2018 figures for its bug bounty numbers and Google Play Store app rejections.
It also set new Android API level requirements to “improve the security of the app ecosystem.” 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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"What Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is and how it could change EA | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/what-star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-is-and-how-it-could-change-ea"
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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 What Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is and how it could change EA Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order artwork.
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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is launching this fall.
Publisher Electronic Arts and developer Respawn have confirmed this release window. But now the companies have announced their plans to officially reveal the game to the public at the upcoming Chicago Star Wars Celebration fan event in April.
In today’s episode of The Star Wars Show , Lucasfilm said that Electronic Arts will host a panel about Fallen Order at Star Wars Celebration, a huge fan event that begins April 11 in Chicago. During that presentation, Respawn will announce the exact release date. Lucasfilm once again reiterated, however, that it is coming this fall.
Beyond the details about the panel, the hosts of The Star Wars Show also gave a synopsis of Fallen Order. It has you playing as a Padawan who escapes Order 66, Emperor Palpatine’s near-annihilation of the Jedi that happens at the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
As this character, you will “explore the galaxy.” And that’s nearly everything we know.
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! But we do have other interesting details about Fallen Order and Respawn that could reveal more about the game. And then there are the unanswered questions that could tell us something about he future of Electronic Arts.
What to expect from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Developed by Respawn Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will end up as the fourth or fifth game from Respawn Entertainment.
Previously, the studio launched shooters Titanfall (2014) and Titanfall 2 (2016). At this point, the company is almost certainly best known for the recently released battle royale shooter Apex Legends that has more than 25 million registered players on PC and consoles.
Respawn also has a virtual reality game in the works that is heading to the Oculus store. The studio plans to launch that this year, so it could come out before Jedi.
But while Respawn got started in 2010, much of its leadership came from the Infinity Ward development team that created the Call of Duty series. Respawn cofounder Vince Zampella shipped the original Call of Duty, the genre-defining Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and the massive-selling Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. But following a battle over bonuses, publisher Activision fired Zampella and his partner, Jason West. When Zampella and West founded Respawn, a number of other Infinity Ward leads joined them to work on Titanfall.
Now, with a history of working on many of the biggest and best shooters in the history of the gaming industry, you would expect more of that from a Respawn Star Wars game. But that’s not the case. Jedi is a third-person action-adventure. Respawn spun up a second team to oversee its development, and it also brought in a new director to lead the project.
Directed by Stig Developer Stig Asmussen joined Respawn Entertainment in 2014 to lead its new team. In 2016, he revealed that Respawn was making a new entry in the Star Wars series.
Asmussen worked at Sony Santa Monica, where he directed God of War III for the PlayStation 3.
For Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you can expect to Asmussen to bring some of action chops he honed on the God of War series. But at the same time, I wouldn’t expect this game to feel just like a classic Kratos adventure. God of War III is only one point of reference for Asmussen, and he has the creative team at Respawn behind him. And he’s also had three years since the release of the first trailer for God of War (2018) at the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in 2016.
With the team that made Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends backing him up and God of War providing some inspiration, I would expect Jedi to have a similar level of ambition.
Development started before the Electronic Arts acquisition Respawn first started working on Jedi: Fallen Order in 2014. That is long before Electronic Arts acquired the studio in 2017.
That is important for a couple of reasons.
For one, it means that Electronic Arts couldn’t dictate terms to Respawn. Not that the publisher would even do that now that it owns the studio. You would imagine that you want a studio like that to have some freedom to create an Apex Legends. But before the acquisition, EA had to negotiate terms with Respawn. And it’s likely that Respawn would have demanded some autonomy in how it went about making Jedi: Fallen Order.
This point is important because of one big question: What engine is Respawn using to create Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order? The safe bet is the Frostbite Engine. Around 2013, Electronic Arts began shifting all of its studios to the Frostbite toolkit that Battlefield developer DICE created for its shooters. Since then, Mass Effect, Need For Speed, and every EA Sports game has moved to Frostbite.
But Respawn was not an EA studio when it started making Star Wars. And Apex Legends, which launched in February, is not running on Frostbite. It is running on a heavily modified version of Valve Software’s Source.
If Respawn isn’t using Frostbite, then what is it using? Probably not Source. That engine is fine for Apex Legends because Respawn has already worked with it so much for its other shooter games, Titanfall and Titanfall 2. But if you’re building a third-person game from scratch, Source doesn’t make sense.
Respawn could build its own tools, but at that point, why not use Frostbite.
So, what about Unreal Engine? Publishers like Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and even Nintendo are making games using Unreal. Why not Respawn? Could it disrupt EA’s Frostbite initiative? Regardless of what engine Respawn ended up choosing, it could lead to changes at EA if it’s not Frostbite. The publisher is coming off of a string of disappointing releases.
Mass Effect: Andromeda was a critical and sales disappointment.
Battlefield V launched with a dearth of content and without a battle royale to compete with Call of Duty. Anthem, which just launched this month, is dealing with mixed reactions from players, and it also feels rushed despite years of development.
For all of those games, reports point to Frostbite as the root cause of many of the development complications. Those issues were so serious that EA and BioWare have put the Mass Effect series on an indefinite hold. And Battlefield V feels like it could force DICE to back off and come back with something fresh for a sequel.
If it’s true that Frostbite is one of the key problems for these games, then it’s fair to say that the engine is potentially costing EA money.
So then what happens if Jedi: Fallen Order is a major critical and commercial hit and it’s not running on Frostbite? That will mean that the two breakout hits from EA in 2019 were the ones that weren’t using its internal engine.
Former EA chief design officer Patrick Söderlund was a major proponent of pushing the publisher’s studios onto a unified development platform. But now that he’s gone, EA may reconsider the Frostbite experiment going forward.
OK, that’s great — but what about the game? It’s a lot easier to speculate about EA than Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order because we haven’t seen anything about the latter. I’ve already touched on most of what the publisher and developer have said in the past.
The only other moment we have to go on is when Zampella revealed the name and setting at the pre-E3 EA Play event in Los Angeles in June.
But that’s not gonna keep me from guessing.
I think we can expect a bombastic single-player adventure that definitely has its roots in the classic God of War games. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it brought in some elements from other modern touchstones like the aforementioned God of War (2018), From Software games like Bloodborne, and Respawn’s Titanfall 2.
We will know for sure in April. Until then, however, I’m gonna keep playing Apex Legends.
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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Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"Hearthstone's Year of the Dragon: Genn and Baku in Hall of Fame, better adventures, and year-long story | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/hearthstones-year-of-the-dragon"
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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 Hearthstone’s Year of the Dragon: Genn and Baku in Hall of Fame, better adventures, and year-long story Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn It's the Year of the Dragon in Hearthstone.
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The Year of the Dragon kicks off in April for Hearthstone , Blizzard Entertainment’s mammoth digital card game. It’s the top dog in the market, which research firm Newzoo estimated would be worth $2 billion by 2020.
It’s entering its fifth year, and come April, it’ll send three sets of cards out of its Standard format … and make some in-game history while doing so.
Hearthstone is saying goodbye to more than the Year of the Mammoth when Journey to Un’Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs rotate out and usher in the Year of the Dragon. The world’s most dominant digital card game is also making a number of quality of life improvements — including sending cards from a Standard set into Wild for the first time since Blizzard introduced the format in 2016. It’ll also tell a single storyline over its next three expansions, something its designers have never done before. And it’s making changes to how its single-player solo adventures work.
But for now, the biggest news might be that two polarizing cards — Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater, which ushered in Even and Odd decks with 2018’s The Witchwood expansion — are going to the Hall of Fame.
All of these changes appear to be with making the playing experience better for most Hearthstone players. And that’s important to keep the millions who play Hearthstone engaged , buying card packs and other content, and showing that, as it turns 5 years old, Hearthstone is ready to face the challenge from Magic: The Gathering — Arena and other card games in this multibillion dollar market.
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! Hall of Fame Above: It’s going to be a Wild year for these two.
This year’s Hall of Fame honorees include a trio that are consistent pieces of some of the top decks in Hearthstone’s five-year history — and Genn and Baku, two of the most polarizing cards that Blizzard has ever made. Genn and Baku have enabled oppressive decks because of how their strengths — upgraded hero powers — make up for what at first appeared to be a weakness, lineups made from either odd or even mana cost cards.
Doomguard Naturalize Divine Favor Genn Greymane Baku the Mooneater All Odd/Even cards (Black Cat, Gloom Stag, Glitter Moth, and Murkspark Eel) As of publication, Hearthstone tracking site HSReplay has two Genn and Baku decks in Tier 1 : Odd Paladin and Even Paladin. Secret Odd Mage is top Tier 2, ahead off two types of Odd Warrior, Even Warlock and plain-ol’ vanilla Odd Mage. Odd Hunter leads Tier 3. HSReplay doesn’t track every Hearthstone player — just those who use it tools — but the community finds it to be one of the best sources of deck tracking, since Blizzard doesn’t release tier lists it gathers from its internal tools.
In Wild, the esports organization Tempo Storm puts out a meta report that has Even Warlock and Even Shaman in the top tier, with Odd Warrior and Odd Rogue in Tier 2 and Even Paladin in Tier 4. Again, like HSReplay, Tempo Storm doesn’t track every player — its meta report comes from a combination of analytics/tracking tools and the opinions/experiences of its contributing experts.
My concern here is that Genn and Baku will continue to help shape the Wild meta unchecked, and people who enjoy these decks in Standard may come into the format and further twist the landscape. In the last round of card adjustments, Blizzard changed Flametongue Totem (a 0/3 minion that gives each creature next to it +2 attack) from 2 mana to 3 mana, and this was in part to see if this could blunt Even Shaman’s power in Wild. The change did not.
Creative director Ben Thompson and lead game designer Mike Donais said that the design team will be keeping an eye on Even/Wild decks in Wild. I asked if they’d consider creating more cards that target Genn and Baku, such as a minion or spell that removes the hero power buff that comes with these decks.
“There’s already two cards that work against hero powers [ Mindbreaker and Saboteur ], and as time goes on, we will make more that target these kinds of cards specifically,” Donais said.
Doomguard has been a mainstay of Warlock decks for years. It’s a strong minion at 5 mana, with 5 attack and 7 health, but it does have a cost — you discard two cards when playing it. However, this drawback never kept it from finding use. It’s a core component of the Cubelock archetype, which dominated for a period in 2018.
Divine Favor is a 3 mana Paladin spell that’s key to Odd Paladin and any aggressive strategy for the class. It enables the player to match the hand size of their opponent. That’s great if you’re belching out cheap card after card, especially if you’re facing a control-style or combo deck that hold a lot of cards.
Druid’s Naturalize is a card that sees play depending on the meta (it’s a good card in Arena). It’s a 1 mana card that destroys a minion, enabling the foe to draw two cards. It’s going to the Hall of Fame for a couple of reasons. First, Hearthstone creative director Ben Thompson said the design team feels that Druid shouldn’t have hard removal — cards that when played destroy another creature. It also ended up finding a home in decks in which a player would destroy one of their own cards to reap its beneficial deathrattle (something that happens when a creature dies), like with Mecha’thun (which when it dies wins the game if you have no cards left in hand and your deck).
Naturalize “did not feel like a Druid thing, in terms of what is a vibe like to play Druid. Removal felt more like a Rogue thing,” Hearthstone creative director Ben Thompson said. “When you look at Rogue, you have — opportunities abound for removal, direct removal, whereas Druid felt like not necessarily the class that should be celebrated in.” Single-player improvements The Year of the Dragon’s first expansion hits in April, with its single-player adventure coming in May. This will come with a number of improvements, addressing some of the player complaints from previous expansions (including those from Rastakhan’s Rumble).
It’ll still be a mode in which you build a deck and take on a series of challenges. It’ll be split into five chapters, telling a story along the way. The first is free, starring a past character with ties to mages, while the other four will cost either 700 gold apiece or $20 total. And it’ll offer more replayability, as you’ll be able to choose one of four starter decks (three with themes along with a random deck) and three hero powers. Rewards will include dust, gold, golden cards, card backs, and card packs (including golden packs). You’ll also be able to track your progress better as well.
During the last standard year, single-player had been free. That’s changing this year, and I asked if this change had anything to do with Activision Blizzard’s last earnings report, in which it announced a layoff of nearly 8 percent of the company despite CEO Bobby Kotick saying that “our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history.” “No, actually,” Thompson said. “The focus there being more around the idea that this experience is so much more deep and so much more value there from the perspective of all the different things we’ve added to that mode. … You have what feels like a Freeze Mage. You have a Fire Mage. You have this more spell-powered Mage, when you consider that the second hero power changes the cost of spells in your hand. Things like that make it a multi-splendored way to play this specific one deck. And then once you start unlocking the next location after that, carrying these heroes across their own chapters where you first unlock them and into each others, and exploring their own loadouts, which make them feel significantly different as well, is really more a testament to just how many variables and how deep this experience is.” 1 2 View All 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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"Bury Me, My Love publisher gets $2.28 million investment and a new name | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/bury-me-my-love-publisher-gets-2-28-million-investment-and-a-new-name"
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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 Bury Me, My Love publisher gets $2.28 million investment and a new name 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 publisher of groundbreaking mobile game Bury Me, My Love has a new plan and stack of cash. The company formerly known as Playdius is also changing its name to Dear Villagers.
This rebranding represents Dear Villagers’ shift more heavily into console and PC games. It wants to bring indie releases and what it calls “double-A games” to market from a variety of studios. To act on that plan, it has raised $2.28 million (€2 million). French investment firm Inter Invest Capital was responsible for the entirety of the funding round.
“With Playdius we built a very eclectic line-up from mainstream narrative games on mobile to hardcore RPGs on PC and console,” Dear Villagers head of publishing Guillaume Jamet said. “We are proud of what we have accomplished but we also think our message wasn’t clear enough. As our company grows, we decided to roll out a new ambitious publishing strategy based on a strong new brand, that clearly identifies us as a provider of mid to hardcore games on PC and console.” Dear Villagers plans to reveal its lineup of games next week. That includes multiple new titles, and the odds are that one of them is a Metroidvania. Additionally, the publisher has plans to release new free content for its role-playing adventure Edge of Eternity. It also is planning a free weekend for its sci-fi parkour game Hover.
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! Indie publishers need to tell a story As Jamet said, Playdius’s messaging wasn’t clear up to this point. And that’s something that other successful indie publishing outfits have excelled at. I know a Devolver Digital game is probably going to have a punk-rock style and some violence, for example.
Dear Villagers wants to get to a point where you understand what it means when it publishes a game. And that’s important because it’s competing in a crowded space.
While the video game industry is thriving , a lot of that comes down to the rich getting richer. The biggest games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, are selling at record pace.
This has created a market where mid-sized games are no longer finding an audience to justify their cost. At least at traditional publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision.
Now, smaller companies like Devolver or Raw Fury are starting to bubble up to fill that void. But it’s not as simple as finding and distributing good games. An indie publisher needs to operate much more like a small music label.
Your average hip hop fan know what Death Row and Def Jam are. Devolver Digital is getting to that level with hardcore gamers. Dear Villagers wants to take that path as well.
“Dear Villagers is a warm hearted invitation to join us in the little unusual neighborhood we are building within the gaming industry,” said Jamet. “A place where talented studios can unleash their creativity and where players enjoy distinctive and audacious games.” 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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"Strategy Analytics: Apple took 51% of growing smartwatch market in Q4 2018 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/strategy-analytics-apple-took-51-of-growing-smartwatch-market-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 Strategy Analytics: Apple took 51% of growing smartwatch market in Q4 2018 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple Watch Series 4 in 44mm (left) next to Series 1 in 42mm (right).
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Global demand for smartwatches grew considerably throughout the end of 2018, Strategy Analytics reports, and Apple has both a majority share and a comfortable lead over its top rivals. But the equation has shown signs of changing as second-place Samsung and third-place Fitbit continue to expand their product lines and distribution.
For the time being, shipments of the Apple Watch lineup are well ahead of Samsung’s and Fitbit’s devices, with 9.2 million Apple Watches shipped in the fourth quarter of 2018 to Samsung’s 2.4 million and Fitbit’s 2.3 million. Garmin came in a distant fourth with shipments of 1.1 million units.
It’s worth noting that all of the companies shipped significantly more smartwatches than they had one year ago. Overall shipments were up 56 percent year over year, with Apple alone seeing an 18 percent jump in the quarter, and a 27 percent jump in 2018 over 2017, for a total of 22.5 million Apple Watches shipped. Industry-wide, 45 million devices were shipped in 2018.
That said, Apple’s relative market share dipped from 67.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017 down to 50.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, as Samsung and Fitbit nearly tripled their shipments, eating into Apple’s lead. According to Strategy Analytics, the change came from increased popularity of the new Galaxy Watch and should be sustained by the affordable new Galaxy Watch Active , while Fitbit’s Versa watch and Care health platform are driving more of its demand.
Also interesting: Garmin is all but standing still, maintaining a 6.1 percent share of shipments for the quarter and 7.1 percent share of shipments for 2018. Like Apple’s top rivals in the space, that’s well below the 18.9 percent market share represented by the aggregated total shipments of all other brands, but unlike Samsung and Fitbit, there isn’t any momentum to suggest a near-term change.
“Rising competition from Fitbit, Samsung, and others in the sports and music categories is making it harder for Garmin to make headway in smartwatches,” explained strategy analytics executive Neil Mawston. “Combined together, Apple, Samsung, Fitbit, and Garmin are the big four players, accounting for eight in 10 of all smartwatches shipped worldwide.” Over the past year, Apple introduced a more expensive Apple Watch Series 4 and dropped the price of the Apple Watch Series 3 without setting a new low entry price for the family. By comparison, Samsung’s just-announced Galaxy Watch Active will replace its Gear Sport watches at a more aggressive $199 entry price, and its new Galaxy Fit activity trackers are expected to be even more affordable.
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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"Red Hat launches Operator Hub, a repository of quality-tested Kubernetes Operators | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/red-hat-launches-operator-hub-a-repository-of-quality-tested-kubernetes-operators"
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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 Red Hat launches Operator Hub, a repository of quality-tested Kubernetes Operators 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 collaboration with Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services, Red Hat today launched OperatorHub.io , a “public registry” for finding services backed by Kubernetes Operators — methods of packaging, deploying, and managing Kubernetes-native applications — that have been quality-tested for users.
As Red Hat’s director of community development Diane Mueller explained, Operators, which were introduced by CoreOS in 2016, have surged in popularity as a way to automate infrastructure and app management using Kubernetes. However, curation efforts haven’t matched that growth — it’s somewhat challenging to find Operators, much less ones that meet baseline standards.
“With the introduction of Operator Hub, we are helping to address this challenge by introducing a common registry to publish and find available Operators,” Mueller wrote in a blog post.
Toward that end, Operator entries on Operator Hub contain descriptions of features and supported Kubernetes versions, in addition to things like Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), access control rules, and container image references needed to install and securely run them. Mueller says that Red Hat’s launch partners worked together to formulate requirements Operators must meet before they’re considered for inclusion: They have to show (1) cluster lifecycle features, (2) packaging that can be maintained through the Operator Framework’s Operator Lifecycle Management, and (3) “acceptable” documentation for its intended users.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Operator Hub is currently populated by Operators including Amazon Web Services Operator, CrunchyData’s PostgreSQL, Couchbase Autonomous Operator, etcd Operator, Jaeger Operator for Kubernetes, Kubernetes Federation Operator, MongoDB Enterprise Operator, Percona MySQL Operator, PlanetScale’s Vitess Operator, Prometheus Operator, and Redis Operator. Red Hat expects the library to grow over time.
If you’re keen to submit your own Operator, head over to the community registry — that’s where you can upload the necessary YAML files.
Submissions are currently being reviewed manually, but an automated process “is on the way,” according to Mueller.
“An important goal for Red Hat is to lower the barrier for bringing applications to Kubernetes. We believe that Operator-backed services play a critical role in lowering this barrier by enabling application owners to use services that can provide the flexibility of cloud services on across Kubernetes environments,” she said. “We hope that the introduction of Operator Hub will further lower this barrier by making it easier for application owners to find the Operator-backed services that they are looking for.” Operators, for the uninitiated, are developed in the Operator Framework, an open source toolkit that comprises an SDK, lifecycle management, metering, and monitoring capabilities. They can be implemented in several programming and automation languages, including Go, Helm, and Ansible, and are capable of automating tasks like updates, backups, and scaling by using Kubernetes CLI.
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"Oculus Quest's new app screening process could kill the $399 VR platform | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/oculus-quests-new-app-screening-process-could-kill-the-399-vr-platform"
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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 Oculus Quest’s new app screening process could kill the $399 VR platform Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Oculus Quest sits behind the Touch controllers.
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It’s easy to root for higher quality software: In the “anything goes” app store era, great apps are routinely surrounded by masses of junky ones. Having to wade through trash sucks for consumers, and is now frustrating even the app stores’ operators.
Facebook’s Oculus division thinks it has a solution to this problem. With only weeks remaining before the launch of its $399 standalone VR headset Quest, Oculus announced that developers will need to meet heightened quality standards before they’ll be allowed in the new Oculus Quest store. Nothing’s changing with the Go or Rift stores — the company’s highest ever standards will only be enforced for Quest.
To win entry to the Quest store, developers will need to submit a concept document to Oculus including “evidence of quality and probable market success,” plus “alignment to our Oculus Developer Content Guidelines.” If they’re approved, they’ll gain full development and publishing access; if not, they won’t have to waste resources working toward something that will be rejected.
No one in their right mind would oppose the “quality-first” concept behind this plan — and I personally called for it to happen last year. After wasting time and money on some glitchy, half-baked VR games , I suggested that Oculus (and its competitors) create classic Nintendo-style seals of quality to raise the testing and performance standards for some laggard VR developers. But I also said that I was “not holding my breath” for it to actually happen.
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! So on one hand, I’m thrilled that Oculus is raising the quality bar for VR software. But on the other hand, I’m not sure that the Oculus Quest store is the best place for the company to start.
Above: Oculus Quest tennis is like playing Wii tennis, in VR.
If you’ve been following media and analyst reports on Quest, you’ve probably seen a collection of generally positive hands-on impressions and optimistic predictions of solid unit sales. My colleague Dean Takahashi opined that Quest “could be a really awesome platform for games in the future” after hands-on testing last September, and though the demos I’ve played were decidedly sub-console quality, I generally agree. Research firm SuperData said last year that Quest will lead VR into the mainstream , and more recently predicted sales of 1.3 million Quests during 2019 — that’s around as many $399 Quests in the first year as Oculus sold $199 Go headsets.
Historically, however, that’s not the way sales volumes generally work in consumer electronics. The fancier, more expensive version of an existing successful product traditionally sells markedly fewer units than the lower-end model, which is why companies seeking larger installed bases tend to find ways to make their devices more affordable to more people. There are rare exceptions — arguably, the iPhone X — but even for trend-bucking Apple, there are numerous counter-examples, such as the iPhone XR and earlier models reportedly outselling the deluxe iPhone XS in 2018.
In the VR market, I would argue that pricing and software have been the key inhibitors of hardware sales, and that the growth VR has seen over the past year has been largely due to more aggressive prices and critical masses of high-quality software.
PlayStation VR began to really pull ahead of competitors when the hardware price fell under $200, and Oculus Go sales were good because it started at that level. Additionally, PSVR received a massive infusion of excellent software in time for the holidays, while Go — more of a passive video viewer — had a robust collection of apps to satisfy users.
Up until Oculus’ “higher quality bar” announcement for Quest, the major question in my mind was how the company would build a software library to attract those 1.3 million estimated customers in 2019. Relatively few games have been formally announced for Quest’s launch window, and they’re generally experiences that you can also play elsewhere. So far, the core Quest pitch is the opportunity to enjoy previously released games such as Superhot VR without wires.
For developers, it’s worth underscoring that a user base of that size is trivial compared with the 32+ million-selling Nintendo Switch , which launched just under two years ago. And for a variety of reasons, the likelihood of any Quest game having Switch-level success in either pricing or sales volumes is practically zero.
Above: Two years of Nintendo Switch hardware sales dwarf even optimistic sales projections for the Oculus Quest.
Instead of welcoming every possible piece of software to its new platform and then casting bright spotlights on the best submissions, Oculus looks like it’s trying to create a waiting line outside an empty restaurant. At this stage, I can’t say whether it’s doing this because there are too many interested Quest developers to screen, or because it will need an explanation for why it’s launching with relatively few games. The actual reasons may only become apparent in the weeks to come.
In either case, I’m not sure that developers will be able to provide evidence of “probable market success” on a platform with no current customers. Oculus appears to be targeting gamers with Quest (which it currently says is “focused first and foremost on fantastic game experiences”), but does that mean it’s not accepting non-gaming apps for the platform? It will also be interesting to see which titles the company thinks are “cool” and “will resonate with the Quest audience” enough to merit full development support and publishing access. Those types of judgments are largely in the eye of the beholder, and could turn off the sort of small, risk-taking developers an unproven platform needs to survive, in hopes of attracting Oculus’ target of “high-quality, innovative titles [that] tend to be expensive to build.” For the sake of both Oculus and Quest users, I hope the company’s initiative has the desired effect and actually raises the Quest store’s quality bar to a higher level than its predecessors. But it could deprive this new platform of the steady stream of new software it will need to survive at its $399 price point. That’s still a steep price for consumers to pay for unproven VR hardware, and Oculus is going to need every incentive it can muster to convince users to jump on board.
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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"Little Friends: Dogs & Cats can scratch your Nintendogs itch on Switch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/little-friends-dogs-cats-can-scratch-your-nintendogs-itch-on-switch"
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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 Little Friends: Dogs & Cats can scratch your Nintendogs itch on Switch 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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Nintendo has not made a Nintendogs game for Switch , but a third-party developer is releasing something that could be good enough. Sold Out Games is bringing Little Friends: Dogs & Cat to Switch later this spring in North America and Europe as a digital and physical release. It came out in Japan last year.
This game has players take care of digital pets, which includes six breeds of puppies and three kinds of kittens. You can use the Switch’s touch screen to pet them. You can also take your furry friends for walks and play games like fetch with them. You can also dress them up in different outfits.
This is pretty similar to how Nintendo’s Nintendogs games work. The original — which released in three versions in 2015 with different dogs available in each — sold a combined 23.96 million on the Nintendo DS. A sequel, Nintendogs + Cats, released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.
But that’s the last time we’ve seen the franchise. Nintendo has not released or announced a Nintendogs game for Switch. Now, another company has a chance to capitalize on that digital pet-hungry market.
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! Sold Out Games is a London-based publisher that has worked with notable studios like Frontier Developments on Jurassic World: Evolution. It has also worked on indie games like Yoku’s Island Express and Overcooked 2.
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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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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4,708 | 2,019 |
"Horizon: Zero Dawn sales pass 10 million two years after launch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/horizon-zero-dawn-sales-pass-10-million-two-years-after-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 Horizon: Zero Dawn sales pass 10 million two years after launch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Aloy lives in a beautiful open world in Horizon: Zero Dawn.
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Sony and developer Guerrilla Games announced today that the open-world Horizon: Zero Dawn has now sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
Horizon launched for PlayStation 4 on February 28, 2017, so two years ago today. PlayStation 4 has had a lot of hits, but most of those have been based on established franchises, like Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and God of War.
Even Marvel’s Spider-Man , which is not a sequel to a previous game, had a lot of name recognition.
Last year, Horizon hit the 7.6 million sold mark.
Even though the title was an older one in 2018 and this early part of 2019, it still managed to sell 2.4 million more copies.
Celebrate good times (and sales) Guerrilla Games managing director Hermen Hulst celebrated the milestone on PlayStation Blog by sharing some fan art, cosplay, and development details about Horizon. You can check those out here.
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! “On behalf of the entire Guerrilla studio here in Amsterdam, I want to thank you for making these last two years fly by,” Hulst notes at the end of the post.
A sequel to Horizon seems likely. It’s just a question of where it will show up. Will it be a PlayStation 4 game, or could Horizon 2 be an early release for the still unannounced PlayStation 5? 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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4,709 | 2,019 |
"Workplace by Facebook passes 2 million paid users | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/workplace-by-facebook-now-has-2-million-paid-users"
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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 Workplace by Facebook passes 2 million paid users 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.
Facebook’s workplace community and productivity app Workplace by Facebook now has more than 2 million paid users, the company announced today in a blog post. This is the first time Facebook has shared the number of paid users for its enterprise app made to rival Slack and Microsoft Teams, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email.
Up until now, Facebook has only shared that Workplace by Facebook is used by more than 30,000 organizations around the world, a figure first shared in 2017.
By comparison, Slack has 10 million daily active users and 3 million paid users , while Microsoft Teams said last fall that its team communications chat app is used by 329,000 organizations.
Workplace by Facebook incorporates select features from the Facebook app — such as live video, likes, and a News Feed — into its offerings and services. Workplace also connects with popular public cloud storage and SaaS offerings like Box, Google Cloud, Salesforce, and HubSpot.
The 2 million paid users figure does not include nonprofit or education users who were provided Workplace premium offerings for free last year.
Last year, Workplace by Facebook introduced integrations with more than 50 SaaS providers , including Jira by Atlassian, ServiceNow, and voice call services like Vonage, Blue Jeans, and Zoom.
Since the launch of Workplace in October 2016 , Facebook executives have contended that its service is distinct from others because it’s made for entire organizations to communicate with each other rather than a smattering of teams within an organization. Facebook also announced today that Workplace users include over 150 companies with more than 10,000 users. New customers added in the past year include Nestle, AstraZeneca, and Delta Airlines.
To compete with similar offerings from Slack and Microsoft Teams for interorganizational communication, last fall Workplace introduced multi-company chat groups and video calls.
Last summer, Facebook acquired enterprise chat app Redkix to integrate into Workplace.
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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"Verity Studios Launches Software Algorithm to Make Drones Dramatically Safer | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/verity-studios-launches-software-algorithm-to-make-drones-dramatically-safer"
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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 Press Release Verity Studios Launches Software Algorithm to Make Drones Dramatically Safer Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Autonomous drone swarm leaders offer low cost, weightless, and easily-integrated algorithms that drastically reduce failure rates ZÜRICH–(BUSINESS WIRE)–February 28, 2019– Verity Studios AG , a pioneer in autonomous drones, has launched an integration program for their Failsafe technology for quadcopters. The patented Failsafe solution provides powerful and cost-effective safety enhancements to any consumer and commercial quadcopter drone platform. This program allows drone manufacturers to easily implement the Failsafe algorithm into their drones as a standalone or complementary safety solution to guard against the most common cause of system-error crashes: propulsion system failures.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190228005901/en/ Drone carrying a package in Failsafe mode after a propulsion system failure See video demonstration here: https://vimeo.com/320555447 The vast majority of consumer and commercial drones in operation today are quadrotors, which have been widely adopted due to their overall efficiency. While many technological innovations have been developed to improve the aircrafts’ operational safety, such as “return to home” features and automatic obstacle avoidance, the majority of technical failures today are caused by a failure in the propulsion system (i.e., the loss of a motor controller, a motor, or a propeller). This is a technological challenge that even the largest companies in the drone industry have not solved. Against conventional engineering analysis, the team at Verity has now proven the ability to safely control and land a quadrotor after a loss of one, or even two, of its propulsion systems with an algorithm-only solution.
Verity’s Failsafe provides the first line of defense against propulsion system failures at little to no cost to the consumer, significantly increasing the safety and reliability of any quadrotor. When a Failsafe-enabled drone has a propulsion system failure, instead of spinning out of control and crashing to the ground, the drone stays in the air, stabilizing itself using sophisticated algorithms. It can then be safely navigated to an appropriate landing location. This type of disaster mitigation has never been achieved or implemented by manufacturers, forcing customers to pay for expensive retrofit systems, like parachutes, in an attempt to make their drones safer.
This is a critical time in the drone industry. In January, the FAA proposed a significant reduction to the constraints of flying drones over people and at night, further confirming a future “sky full of drones” collecting data, delivery goods, and transporting people.
Regulators clearly see that today’s drones still present safety challenges, and many commercial manufacturers are looking for advanced solutions to tackle these problems and enable the sustainable growth of this industry. The current state of drone regulation and adoption highlights the dire need for drone manufacturers to leverage all available technologies to ensure the safe operations of their drones; both fully autonomously and at scale.
Verity’s Failsafe algorithm can be implemented into existing quadcopters flying in the air today through a simple firmware update. This code-based solution requires no additional hardware and adds no weight to the system, making it the lowest cost and highest efficiency risk-mitigation feature currently on the market. Led by robotics and AI expert Raffaello D’Andrea and originally developed to fly 2 lb. quadcopters on Broadway, the team at Verity has proven this technology in more than 7,000 flights over people. Verity is now offering its Failsafe algorithm to any drone manufacturer through custom integration. A reference design on PX4 with the Pixhawk autopilot is now available, simplifying the implementation process for drone manufacturers.
Verity’s industry-first technology is the most effective solution for safe and reliable flight without compromising on flight time and payload capacity. Increasing drone safety with Failsafe technology is a critical step in bringing about the future of autonomous drone inspections, drone delivery, air-taxis and the advancement of the overall drone industry.
Quotes: “With more drones populating our skies every day, we feel a responsibility to make the safety measures we’ve created available to the industry at large. We are excited to see the impact as drone manufacturers adopt this critical safety measure.” Raffaello D’Andrea, CEO and founder of Verity Studios, Co-founder of Amazon Robotics “I’ve seen enough drones from every major brand fall out of the sky due to a propulsion system failure to know that if we can solve this issue with a simple firmware update, drone manufacturers should be jumping at the opportunity to implement Verity’s Failsafe algorithm.” Colin Guinn, Founder of Guinn Partners, former CEO of DJI North America “The failsafe technologies developed by Verity’s exceptional team were the main trigger for our investment. We are delighted and determined to support Verity in making this technology widely available.” Matthieu Repellin, Investment Partner, Airbus Ventures.
About Verity Verity Studios is the global leader in indoor drone systems. Founded in 2014, the company has extensive experience in the creation of spectacular drone shows, providing unique performances for touring productions, resident shows, and one-off events. Verity’s drones have been used by some of the world’s biggest entertainment providers, including Cirque du Soleil and Madison Square Garden , and have performed on stage as part of global tours for major artists including Drake and Metallica.
Verity has completed more than 100,000 autonomous flights safely above people, across more than 20 countries worldwide.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190228005901/en/ Katie Cullen Montgomerie Marketing and Communications Manager Verity Studios [email protected] +41 44 533 83 74 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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"The 2018 Proppant Market Report: One Trillion Pounds and Counting | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-2018-proppant-market-report-one-trillion-pounds-and-counting"
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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 Press Release The 2018 Proppant Market Report: One Trillion Pounds and Counting Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–February 28, 2019– PropTester, Inc. and KELRIK LLC announce the 2018 Proppant Market Report will be released on March 4, 2019. The Proppant Market Report is an annual review of the global proppant market in relation to prior years. The proppant industry supplied 230 billion pounds (115 million tons) of sand, ceramic and resin coated proppants in 2018.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190228005157/en/ Cumulative Proppant Market 1990 – 2018 (Graphic: Business Wire) In addition to setting historical highs for frac sand, the industry surpassed one trillion cumulative pounds of proppant since hydraulic fracturing commenced. “Based on our data commencing 1980, and accounting for estimated and select known annual volumes as far back as 1950, the one trillionth pound of proppant was very likely produced in early 2018. That is a suitable number to highlight the growing importance of the proppant industry and to mark the 15 th year of the report’s inception,” noted Brian Olmen of KELRIK LLC.
Frac sand was the primary beneficiary in 2018. Demand for ceramic proppants also improved due to activity outside of North America. Demand for ceramic and resin coated proppants were below their historical highs established in 2014.
North American frac sand capacity continues to grow and surpassed 440 billion pounds from 150 production facilities in early 2019. “With the significant increase in capacity, the sand industry, much like the North American ceramic and resin coated proppant sectors, will possibly have to navigate the impacts of excess supply in an uncertain 2019,” added Michelle Stribling of PropTester, Inc. “Due to the dominance of cost conscious, sand-intensive completion strategies, we continue to expand the report with additional details on emerging sand sources as well as updates on ongoing technical studies.” The Proppant Market Report (PMR) is annually by PropTester, Inc. and KELRIK, LLC. The contributing authors have over 100 years of direct experience in the production, testing, sale and use of all types of proppants. PMR subscribers have access to an electronic copy of the confidential report, as well as online access and interactive maps on www.proppantmarketreport.com.
For further information, please contact Michelle Stribling or Amanda Chavey at (888)-756-2112 or visit www.proptester.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190228005157/en/ Michelle Stribling PropTester, Inc.
713-826-5971 [email protected] 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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"Teradici Adds Support for Open-Source Hypervisor Technology to Deliver More Flexibility within Cloud Access Software | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/teradici-adds-support-for-open-source-hypervisor-technology-to-deliver-more-flexibility-within-cloud-access-software"
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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 Press Release Teradici Adds Support for Open-Source Hypervisor Technology to Deliver More Flexibility within Cloud Access Software Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Support for kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) hypervisor offers flexibility and cost efficiency for customers operating on-premises and private clouds BURNABY, British Columbia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–February 28, 2019– As the use of cloud technology and virtual machines gains traction across a wide range of organizations from media to enterprise to government, it has become clear that no single approach is suitable for every situation. Responding to the need of customers for more control and flexibility in hosting and managing their virtual desktops, Teradici ®, the creator of industry-leading PCoIP® technology and Cloud Access Software, today announced support for kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) hypervisor technology. KVM is an open-source virtualization technology that offers a cost-effective and flexible alternative solution for customers using private clouds to host virtual machines.
“We have a number of customers, particularly in fields like government services and in international markets, who are interested in using an open-source solution for the level of control, customization, and cost efficiency it offers in managing their on-premises and private clouds,” said David Smith, CEO of Teradici. “Adding KVM support to Cloud Access Software provides greater flexibility and enables them to tailor infrastructure to meet their specific needs.” The addition of KVM support to Teradici Cloud Access Software broadens the range of choices the company offers customers. As an open-source solution, the KVM hypervisor offers a cost-effective way to meet particular needs: It enables broad customization, offers choice of management tools and expands multicloud deployment options; It offers customers control in the management and features of their on-premises and private clouds; It provides opportunities for system integrators and OEMs to tailor and augment their offerings to meet specific customer requirements.
Because KVM is an open-source solution, a variety of KVM hypervisors are available to suit different needs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Virtualization offer one of the most prominent and widely used KVM distributions, particularly in enterprise and government environments. As one of the preferred KVM solutions for Teradici customers, Red Hat’s KVM-based technologies were used by Teradici to test and qualify its new KVM support.
“Open-source virtualization provides a powerful and cost-effective foundation upon which enterprises can base digital transformation efforts, pairing the stability required for existing workloads with the flexibility to support cloud-native applications,” said Rob Young, senior manager, Virtualization Product Management, Red Hat. “We are pleased to see Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Virtualization supported by Teradici Cloud Access Software, providing customers with additional choice to meet their specific enterprise computing needs.” Carahsoft, a trusted IT solution provider and long-time public sector distributor of Teradici products, has built a reputation for helping government agencies find the best possible solution at the best possible value. According to Evan Slack, director of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Team at Carahsoft, KVM hypervisor support will offer immediate value to Carahsoft’s public sector customers and reseller ecosystem.
“As agencies seek to accelerate their cloud migrations and increase their virtual machine offerings, KVM allows IT teams to leverage the flexibility and customization that open-source software provides, while remaining in a private cloud environment,” Evan said. “KVM offers end users a higher level of choice and control to meet evolving needs, and does so while delivering an option to keep their costs effectively managed. We look forward to being able to provide this solution to our state, local and federal customers and resellers to smooth their cloud migrations and help them meet the goals of the Cloud Smart strategy.” KVM support is available now to subscribers in the beta release of Cloud Access Software 2019.05. General availability is scheduled for May 2019. Visit the Teradici website for more information on Cloud Access Software.
About Teradici Teradici is the creator of the PCoIP® remoting protocol technology and Cloud Access Software. The company’s core mission is seamless and secure delivery of workstations and applications for end users. Teradici PCoIP technology and Cloud Access Software offer the most secure remoting solutions for public, private, and multicloud environments, enabling visualization of even the most graphics-intensive applications. The company’s solutions are deployed by Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies, and service providers around the world.
Teradici and PCoIP are trademarks of Teradici Corporation and are registered in the United States and/or other countries. Any other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190228005227/en/ Media: Carmen Mantelas Blanc & Otus for Teradici [email protected] 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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