Owners gripe about software performance issues as Google is rumored to be expanding the line with a more budget-friendly model.
Source: CNET
It makes the big moment make much more sense. Spoilers ahead.
Source: CNET
The country singer drops by game maker Zynga’s San Francisco headquarters to co-host the trivia game broadcast.
Source: CNET
Bird and Lime are scooting along, backed by hundreds of millions in venture capital. But there are still plenty of companies hoping to dominate the still-nascent micro mobility market, given the financial opportunity it’s promising. Among them: Bond Mobility, a three-year-old Palo Alto, Calif.- and Zurich, Switzerland-based startup that says its “high-performance” dockless electric bikes will leave e-scooters in the dust.
Investors think the company might be right — at least, they think it might be right for a certain type of customer who wants to get to where she is going faster. DENSO’s New Mobility Group, which includes Toyota and SoftBank, just provided $20 million in Series A funding to the upstart, whose vehicles can travel at up to 30 miles per hour. That’s twice what electric scooter companies have decided is a safe speed.
Electric mopeds like that of Scoot have a top speed of 30 miles per hour and they only require a bit of in-app instruction. Yet Bond doesn’t see these as direct competitors, either, perhaps because they must be parked in legal parking spaces, whereas dockless electric bikes can be parked nearly anywhere (for better or worse).
Whether or not it’s a good idea to travel so fast on a bike in an urban environment is apparently up to the customer to decide. Though Bond’s bikes are only available for now in Zurich and in Bern, Switzerland, they are coming to the U.S. soon, says the company, and a loophole in California law may help. To wit, any motor bike that can’t go more than 30 miles per hour can be rented with just a car license in the golden state. Some states are even more lax when it comes to motorized vehicles.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that Bond’s founder, Kirt McMaster, has shown himself to be a bit of a risk-taker in the past. McMaster previously founded Cyanogen, a now discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices that was based on the Android mobile platform and which burned through at least $115 million in venture capital, including from Andreessen Horowitz, Tencent, and Benchmark, before shutting down in December of 2016.
By then, McMaster – – who famously boasted once of Cyanogen, “We’re putting a bullet through Google’s head” — was already gone. He was ousted months earlier and replaced by a new CEO for whom it was apparently too late to turn things around. Soon after, he set his sights on the world of transportation.
Of course, Bond — which operates in Switzerland as Smide and uses hardware from the Swiss e-bike company Stromer — has yet to prove that it can compete on U.S. soil, let alone elsewhere in Europe. But McMaster seemingly hasn’t lost his penchant for talking up his products in the meantime. As he told Business Insider earlier today, in his view, the “speed e-bike is the apex predator” that may just kill better-funded “scooter guys” if all goes as planned.
McMaster is smart to try. According to a recent McKinsey study, by 2030, the micro-mobility market in expected to reach $200 billion to $300 billion in the United States, $100 billion to $150 billion in Europe, and $30 billion to $50 billion in China.
Certainly, it’s a lot easier to scale up micro-mobility assets than any kind of car-based sharing business, as notes that same McKinsey study. Besides, Bond’s new backers have plenty of those types of bets already.
Source: TechCrunch
In Facebook’s dreams, it’s a clean and private place. People spend their time having thoughtful discussions in “meaningful” Groups, planning offline meetups with Events, or laughing together in a Facebook Watch party.
In reality, Facebook is a cluttered mess of features that seem to constantly leak user data. People waste their time viewing inane News Feed posts from “friends” they never talk to, enviously stalking through photos of peers, or chowing on click-bait articles and viral videos in isolation. Facebook will never shake this reputation if it just keeps polishing its old features.
That’s why Facebook is rolling out what could be called an “aspirational redesign” known as FB5. Rather than polishing what Facebook was, it tries to spotlight what it wants to be. “This is the biggest change we’ve made to the Facebook app and site in five years” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said to open Facebook’s F8 conference yesterday.
Most noticeably, that starts with sucking much of the blue out of the Facebook interface to making it look sparse and calming — despite a More button that unveils the social network’s bloat into dozens of rarely used features. A new logo features a brighter blue bubble around Facebook’s distinctive white f, which attempts to but a more uplifting spin on a bruised brand.
Functionally, FB5 means placing Groups near the center of a freshly tabbed interface for the both Facebook’s website and app, and putting suggestions for new ones to join across the service. “Everywhere there are friends, there should be Groups” says the head of the Facebook app Fidji Simo. Groups already has 1 billion monthly users, so Facebook is following the behavior pattern and doubling down. But Facebook’s goal is not only to have 2.38 billion people using the feature — the same number as use its whole app — but to get them all into meaningful Groups that emblematize their identity. 400 million already are. And now Groups for specific interests like gaming or health support will get special features, and power users will get a dashboard of updates across all their communities.
Groups will be flanked by Marketplace, perhaps the Facebook feature with the most latent potential. It’s a rapidly emerging use case Facebook wants to fuel. Just a a year and a half after launch, Marketplace had 800 million monthly users. Zuckerberg took Craigslist, added real identity to thwart bad behavior, and now is bolting it to the navigation bar of the most-used app on earth. The result is a place where it’s easy to put things up for sale and get tons of viewers. I once sold a couch on Marketplace in 20 minutes. Now sellers can take payments directly in the app instead of with cash or Venmo, and they can offer to ship items anywhere at the buyer’s expense. By following Zuckerberg’s mandate that 2019 focus on commerce, Facebook has become a viable Shopify competitor.
If Groups is what’s already working about Facebook’s future, Watch is the opposite. It’s a product designed to capture the video viewing bonanza Facebook observes on Netflix and YouTube. But without tent pole content like a “Game Of Thrones” or “Stranger Things”, it’s failed to impact the cultural zeitgeist. The closest thing it has to must-see video is Buffy The Vampire Slayer re-runs and a docuseries on NBA star Steph Curry. Facebook claims 75 million people now Watch for at least one minute per day though those 60 seconds don’t have to be sequential. That’s still just 4 percent of its users. And a Diffusion study found 50 percent of adult US Facebook users had never even heard of Watch. Sticking it front and center demonstrates Facebook commitment to making Watch a hit even if it has to cram it down our throats.
The products of the past got little love on stage at F8. Nothing new for News Feed, Facebook’s mint but also the source of its misinformation woes. In the age of Snapchat and Zuckerberg’s newfound insistence on ephemerality to prevent embarrassment, the Timeline profile chronicling your whole Facebook life got nary a mention. And Pages for businesses that were the center of its monetization strategy years ago didn’t find space in the keynote, similar to how they’ve been butted out of the News Feed by competition and Facebook’s philosophical shift from public content to friends and family.
The one thing we heard a lot about but didn’t actually see much of was privacy. Zuckerberg started the conference declaring “The future is private!” He spoke about how Facebook plans to make its messaging apps encrypted, how it wants to be a living room rather than just a town hall, and how it’s following the shift in user behavior away from broadcasting. But we didn’t see any new privacy protections for the developer platform, a replacement for its Chief Security Officer that’s been vacant for nine months, or the Clear History feature Zuckerberg announced last year.
“I get that a lot of people aren’t sure that we’re serious about this. I know that we don’t exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly” Zuckerberg joked without seeming to generate a single laugh. Combined with having little to show to enhance privacy, making fun of such a dire situation doesn’t instill much confidence. When Zuckerberg does take things seriously, it quickly manifests itself in the product like with Facebook’s 2012 shift to mobile, or in the company like with 2018’s doubling of security headcount. He knew mobile and content moderation failures could kill his network. But does someone who told Time magazine in 2010 that “What people want isn’t complete privacy” truly see a loose stance on privacy as an existential threat?
Interoperable, encrypted messaging will boost privacy, but it’s also just good business logic given Zuckerberg’s intention to own chat — the heart of your phone. Facebook’s creepiness stems from it sucking in data to power ad targeting. Nothing new was announced to address that. Despite his words, perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t aspire to make Facebook as private as he aspired to make it mobile and secure.
Wired reported that Zuckerberg authored a strategy book given to all employees ahead of the IPO that noted “If we don’t create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will.” But F8 offered a new interpretation. Maybe given the lack of direct competitors in its league, and the absence of a mass exodus over its constant privacy scandals, it was the outdated product itself that was killing Facebook. The permanent Facebook. The all-you-do-is-scroll Facebook. The bored-of-my-friends Facebook. Users were being neglected rather than pushed away or stolen. By ignoring the past and emphasizing the products it aspires to have dominate tomorrow — Groups, Marketplace, Watch — Facebook can start to unchain itself from the toxic brand poisoning its potential.
Source: TechCrunch
Catch up on the most important news today in 2 minutes or less.
Source: Wired
From hate speech to misinformation, the social network has big problems.
Source: CNET
Finding a way to increase the efficiency of the metal 3D printing process means it can be used in lots of aspects of Daimler’s business.
Source: CNET
Google is opening its Android Automotive operating system up to third-party developers to bring music and other entertainment apps into vehicle infotainment systems, starting with the Polestar 2, an all-electric vehicle developed by Volvo’s standalone electric performance brand.
Google announced Wednesday that media app developers will be able to create new entertainment experiences for Android Automotive OS and the Polestar 2, starting at Google I/O 2019, the annual developer’s conference that kicks off May 7.
Google is starting with media app developers such as Spotify and other entertainment sites. However, the company plans to expand into other categories of apps as well such as navigation, Haris Ramic, Google’s product lead for Android Automotive told TechCrunch in a recent interview.
Android Automotive OS shouldn’t be confused with Android Auto, which is a secondary interface that lies on top of an operating system. Android Automotive OS is modeled after its open-source mobile operating system that runs on Linux. But instead of running smartphones and tablets, Google modified it so it could be used in cars.
Polestar introduced in February its first all-electric vehicle, a five-door fastback called the Polestar 2, ahead of the Geneva Motor Show. The Polestar 2’s infotainment system is powered by Android Automotive OS and, as a result, brings into the car embedded Google services such as Google Assistant, Google Maps and the Google Play Store.
Ramic noted that the system shown in Geneva has improved and now has updated Google Maps and a media center that allows third-party applications like Spotify, NPR and YouTube Music to function more seamlessly in the vehicles. These applications will be ready when the vehicle goes into volume production, which is slated to begin in early 2020 at its Chengdu, China factory. The company is initially targeting sales in China, the U.S., Canada and a handful of European countries that include Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the U.K.
Polestar isn’t the only company with plans to incorporate a version of its Android operating system into its car infotainment systems. Volvo announced in 2017 that it would use the Android OS and a year later said it would embed voice-controlled Google Assistant, Google Play Store, Google Maps and other Google services into its next-generation Sensus infotainment system. lvo.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Tuesday that it will use tech from Harman and Google to build out its connected-car services. Google’s Android Automotive OS will power FCA’s next version of its Uconnect infotainment system, while Samsung-owned Harman’s Ignite cloud platform will handle the out-of-car services.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance has also publicly announced plans for Android Automotive OS as well as other automakers that Google can’t reveal at this time, Ramic said.
“Interest is very high,” Ramic said, noting that a growing number of companies have come to see the value in leveraging Google’s expertise.
That’s a shift from the traditionally protective stance of automakers intent of keeping Google out of the car. But as the divide between the capabilities of smartphones and in-car infotainment systems grows, automakers have been more willing to turn to Google.
Source: TechCrunch
Whether you want a compact laptop to enjoy some entertainment on the go, or you need a no-nonsense machine for school or work, we’ve smoked out the best cheap Chromebook deals — from full-sized laptops to 2-in-1 convertibles — that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
The post Here are the best Chromebook deals available in May 2019 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends