Microsoft’s Next Xbox; Mac Pro Out in September; Amazon Stops Selling Blink XT2 Cam; Salesforce Buying Visualization Co. Tableau

Microsoft has revealed more about ‘Project Scarlett,’ the next gen Xbox. According to businessinsider.com, the console will launch ‘holiday 2020.’ It will rock 8K video, have SSD storage, and Microsoft says it will be 4 times more powerful than the Xbox One X. Look for frame rates of up to 120 fps. Microsoft will use the SSD not only as storage, but also as virtual RAM, boosting performance by 40x over the current Xbox…games should load much, much faster. Halo Infinite will also launch alongside the new console when it drops.

The über powerful Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR Apple showed off at WWDC a few days ago will be available for order this fall. Macrumors.com reports that the Apple website now indicates that it is coming in September, and there’s a ‘notify me’ button on the site. The outrage over the preposterous $999 stand has softened if only a little after some techies noted that most buyers of the $4999 monitor will probably just mount the things on their existing stands or arms and wouldn’t buy a stand anyway. The Mac Pro starts at $5999, and estimates of it plus the monitor fully tricked out could touch $50 grand!

Amazon has stopped sales of the new Blink XT2 smart camera it launched last month amid a slew of mixed reviews. Theverge.com says the cam is now listed as ‘currently unavailable,’ and Best Buy, which was also selling it shows it as ‘coming soon.’ The $89.99 XT2 had been panned for puny maximum WiFi range in trying to hit users’ routers, in addition to buggy software, and inconsistent motion detection. Some users have gotten email from the founder of Blink, saying they are working to correct the ‘unforeseen’ problems.

Last week, Google bought analytic startup Looker. Now, according to techcrunch.com, Salesforce has snapped up data visualization firm Tableau for $15.7 billion with an all-stock deal. Salesforce is angling to increase engagement with its present customers via the visualization tools. They believe they will be able to deliver ‘a truly unified and powerful view across all of a customer’s data’ after Tableau is fully integrated.

Apple May Be Buying Drive.ai; Uber Ready to Launch Heli-Taxis; Amazon Reveals Delivery Drone

There’s an unconfirmed report out today that Apple may be buying Drive.ai. According to 9to5mac.com, they are mainly interested in acquiring the engineers from the self-driving startup. In fact, the deal has been dubbed an ‘acqui-hire!’ For some time, it’s been fuzzy whether Apple is just developing a self-driving system they can pitch to car makers, or if they are building an actual Apple branded car under Project Titan.

Uber may not quite be ready to launch its autonomous flying taxis, but they are preparing to start offering air transit in New York City beginning July 9th. Engadget.com reports that Uber Copter will be available to Uber Rewards members who have hit Platinum and diamond status. The average ride will run you between $200 and $225. For reference on the price…I knew an auto dealer in Houston who commuted by chopper and it ran about $200 a day back in 1980…he said the 15 minute commute instead of 90 minutes in traffic was worth it to him and his dealership. Worth noting—they will fly a predetermined route, not drop passengers just anywhere. They will fly between a location near the Staten Island Ferry and Kennedy Airport…flight time will be around 8 minutes. Each chopper will hold up to 5 passengers and two pilots, but very little baggage. The choppers will be operated by the Heliflite charter service.

On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled its new drone at the Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas. Businessinsider.com says the delivery drone will have a range of 15 miles and can deliver a package of up to 5 lbs. Amazon claims the drone will allow deliveries within 30 minutes. The tiny drone aircraft takes off and lands as a helicopter, then switches to straight winged flight like a VTOL fighter plane such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The drone is capable of sensing hazards like wires, chimneys, and paraglider in real time, and can avoid them. Amazon didn’t announce when they might begin actual deliveries to customers for money in the US, but it is certainly getting much closer to that.

Microsoft & Oracle Partner on Cloud Service; Amazon Shows New Warehouse Robots; GM & Michelin- Airless Tires by 2024; Peloton Stock Going Public

Microsoft is partnering with Oracle in and effort to make their two cloud computing services work together with high-speed links between their data centers. According to reuters.com, the pairing up will start in the US, then move to other countries. Oracle and Microsoft are courting large businesses and governments, and are particularly taking aim at the biggest cloud provider, AWS…Amazon Web Services. Microsoft already has deals with German software maker SAP SE and Adobe. Oracle is all about protecting its dominance in the database market, which Amazon has been moving in on.

Amazon has showed off new warehouse robots. Techcrunch.com reports that the new gen robots, which will update robots the warehouses have used since 2012, were revealed at their re:MARS conference. They also brought Robert Downey, Jr to the stage! The new system is more modular, and can be configured for moving stock around the warehouse, as well as sorting. All use the same base, but they will be demonstrating two later this week….the Xanthus Sort Bot and Xanthus Tote Mover. Amazon says they now have 200,000 robotic drive devices world wide. They feel the new machines will help reduce sort errors, minimize damage, and speed delivery times.

It’s been in the works for a while, but now GM and Michelin have revealed a prototype of Uptis (Unique Puncture-Proof Tire System). Engadget.com says the Michelin made airless tire may be out for passenger cars by 2024. Unlike prior attempts at airless tires, The Uptis mix of composite rubber and resin embedded fiberglass lets it operate at highway speeds — earlier options tend to work only when you’re slowly putting around. Although the look takes a bit of getting used to, Michelin claims the ride is just as good as an air-inflated tire. Although it can still be damaged, at least blowouts, flat tires, and irregular wear should become history with this tire.

Peloton, the maker of connected, on-demand fitness equipment…notably their indoor cycles, has filed to go public. According to theverge.com, they have made a confidential filing, as was done previously by Lyft, Uber, and Slack. The number of shares and price range weren’t revealed, but in their last round of funding (August 2018), the company was valued at $4.15 billion. CEO John Foley said last year that they had a ‘beautiful business model,’ and that it was ‘weirdly profitable.’ Since Peloton came on the scene (in a very visible way, with their mall kiosks), Flywheel, SoulCycle, and NordicTrack now offering their own versions of either a connected bike or on-demand class content.

Google Reveals Sunday Outage Cause; Samsung Delays Galaxy Home Speaker; Bird Electric Moped; Apple-Privacy As a Service

A lot of people experienced outages for several hours Sunday on various Google services….YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and other products were impacted, along with third-party services like Apple’s iCloud and Snapchat reliant on Google Cloud. According to 9to5google.com, a configuration change intended for a small number of servers in one region was applied to many servers across a number of neighboring regions. Google also shared the impact…YouTube had a 10% drop in global viewings, Google Cloud Storage had a 30% reduction in traffic, and about 1% of users had problems with their Gmail accounts. It’s kind of like the old saying that when the US economy sneezes, the world catches a cold. Google has an outsized impact on our digital lives!

Samsung has delayed the release of its Galaxy Home smart speaker. Engadget.com reports that it may now reach store shelves between July and September. The company is positioning it as the center of its home appliances…their smart hub, if you will. It already starts off with a substantial disadvantage in that it runs on the Samsung assistant Bixby, which isn’t remotely as widely used as Alexa or Google’s assistant…or, for that matter, Siri. Now, the also delayed Galaxy F folding phone may actually beat the Galaxy Home speaker to the market. After the aborted rollout of the Galaxy F, Samsung might be wise to hold off and get the home speaker pretty bulletproof before releasing it.

When I was probably 12, I had a bike…as did most kids. The paperboy (whom I’ll call Jim…since that was his name) had a MoPed, sold at the time by Sears, which I lusted. Now, scooter-sharing company Bird will be launching an electric MoPed this summer. Theverge.com says it’s called the ‘Cruiser,’ and it will have a 52 volt battery. The Cruiser will have a nice, large padded seat, disc brakes, and an LCD screen (presumably to show how much charge you have left.) No word on what it will charge to rent the bike or its range or speed, or if it will also sell them. Most e-bikes seem to sell in the $1200-$3000 range. Bird HAS announced that they will sell their new custom scooter outright to buyers for $1299.

As noted here yesterday, Apple previewed their Sign in With Apple feature at WWDC. According to techcrunch.com, the feature is part of Apple’s privacy as a service push. Apple has touted for years the fact that they protect your data more than most other tech companies…and don’t sell or share it. In fact, a lot of your info stays on the secure chip in the device and doesn’t live in Apple’s cloud servers. An interesting wrinkle…in addition to the Single Sign On feature that lets you mask your actual email address, is the ability for the user to obtain actual on-device analysis of footage captured by third-party partners to deliver things that security device makers have typically offered as a value-add service themselves. That includes apparent identification of visitors to your home, for instance, and sending alerts when it detects people, as well as being able to differentiate that from other kinds of motion. One possible fly in the ointment…developers have counted on Hoovering up your information to help their own bottom lines. Some may balk at developing on Apple’s platforms without that cash stream from selling or trading your data.

Our Apple WWDC Quick Take; Amazon Prime Free 1 Day Ship- 10Million Items; FTC & DOJ Divvying Up Investigating Amazon, Google, Apple, etc.

A big headline from Apple’s marathon WWDC keynote today: A new Mac Pro! This thing is a beast, definitely aimed at pro users, and configurable and flexible enough to do massive video, audio, and programming projects (all for a princely price, of course.) The new Pro starts at $5999, and runs on an Intel Xeon processor with 28 cores. The Pro has 6 memory channels in 12 slots, for up to 1.5 TB of memory! It has 8 PCI-e slots…4 double wide, 3 single wide. Two Thunderbolt 3 ports and two USB-A ports take up the 8th. The standard video is a Radeon Pro Vega II. It can actually run 4 of these! the beast has a 1.4Kw power supply. You can get a 6K display for it that will set you back another $4999. The computer can run up to 6 of these displays at once! The entire cover comes off the Mac Pro for access on all sides, and there are optional wheels so the workstation can be rolled around.

A new OS? Yep, they rolled one out….a separate iPad OS. It adds a number of features to iOS, including the ability to slide over your widgets to the home screen, easier switching of the slide out window for 2nd apps, and better Split view multi-window capability. Appleinsider.com notes that it will bring full desktop type browsing to the iPad, and will support plugging in thumb drives with full access in the Files app. There is also a download manager, and Apple is offering support for enterprise users to have a work Apple Cloud account and a Home one, so you don’t have to bring your work home….or vice versa.

The new Mac OS is Catalina (10.15). A headline item is the widely rumored split of iTunes. Apple Music, Podcasts, and TV will now be spun off into their own dedicated apps. Sidecar allows using an iPad as a 2nd screen, something that has been available in outside developer apps, but now is native to Apple’s OS. They have also merged Find My iPhone with Find my Friends. Dark mode was touted in a big way. One caveat….the new Mac OS will be the first to not support 32 bit apps.

The Apple Watch gets some new faces, new complications, and more health trackers. It picks up a new Noise app that warns you about loud sound that can damage your hearing, an app can track a woman’s menstrual cycle and ‘peak fertility.’ WatchOS gets its own App Store, which means you won’t have to use your iPhone to download Watch apps. 3 cheers for the calculator app…it’s a small thing, but it finally makes it to the Watch. This will be very handy! (OK, terrible pun…I know.)

Apple also introduced at WWDC a feature called ‘Sign in With Apple.’ Its being touted as a log in system that will minimize the tracking everyone on the web does. This iOS 13 feature allows you to create a fresh, new account on pages or apps that ask for an account, but just shares the info you tell it to. If the page or app asks for an email, Apple will create a custom dummy address for it that auto-forwards to your email without the page or app actually HAVING your real email! Each one will have a custom, dummy email account…and you can shut them down if you close that account at the page or App, so you don’t get massive amounts of spam forwarded to your real email forever!

In a rather large non-apple story today, businessinsider.com reports that Amazon has announced one day free shipping for Prime members on 10 million items. this is a shot across Walmart’s bow. The latter had announced next-day shipping, but on an initial220,000 items! Walmart’s are also regionalized, so may be different in different parts of the country.

Some not-so-exciting news to big tech companies. The Feds have announced they are splitting up duties to investigate the big tech companies. The FTC will be taking Amazon, and the Department of Justice will investigate Google, according to the Washington Post. Apple will also be under the eye for antitrust by the DOJ. **Facebook will also fall to the FTC along with Amazon.

Chrome Will Limit Ad Blockers to Enterprise Users; 70% of Hulu Users Opt For Cheaper Ad-Supported Plan; Big Tech Firms Pan Brit ‘Ghost Protocol’ Plan; DOJ May let T-Mobile & Sprint Merge-BUT Create New Competitor

A lot of us use ad blockers of one type or another…typically, a plug in extension for whatever browser we are using. The first of the year, Google had announced a proposed change to Chrome’s extension which they dubbed Manifest V3 that would stop current ad blockers from working efficiently. After massive negative feedback, 9to5google.com reports that Google has backtracked a bit…they will allow the current ad blocking capabilities for enterprise users. The rest of us get to suck it…at least until developers figure out a work around to block ads in Chrome anyway. Not a totally unexpected position from Google, which makes the vast majority of their cash on serving ads and collecting data with which to better target and serve ads.

People have never loved ads, but apparently if the price is cheap enough (or free, in the case of radio or over the air TV), they will put up with a certain amount of them. According to variety.com, Hulu reports that 70% of their 82 million viewers opt for the ad supported plan at $5.99 a month. Hulu offers and ad free version, like Netflix, but it runs $11.99 per month. Hulu has 28 million customer accounts, so the 82 million viewers means they average 2.9 viewers per Hulu account. Hulu reports pulling down almost 1.5 billion in ad revenue in 2018. Hulu says they plan to keep breaks to 90 seconds.

Britain’s Government Communications HQ has proposed a plan for a ‘ghost protocol,’ which would mean encrypted messages like on WhatsApp would have to send a copy of the message to a third recipient at the same time as sending it to its intended recipient. CNBC.com reports that 47 tech firms, including Apple, Google, and WhatsApp have jointly urged the GCHQ to give up this ideal. The tech giants claim the ghost protocol would be a ‘serious threat’ to not only digital security but to fundamental human rights. The Brit agency claims the ghost recipient would enable law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted communications without undermining the privacy, security, or confidence of other users. If you believe that, I have a big, orange bridge North of San Francisco to sell you!

The US Department of Justice will approve a deal for T-Mobile and Sprint to merge, BUT will demand they form a new, competing wireless carrier as part of the deal. According to cnet.com, after merger, the new company would be nearly as large as AT&T and Verizon, and the DOJ is concerned about the fact that those two already dominate 70% of the wireless market. T-Mobile had already agreed to build out requirements to ensure 5G deployment in rural areas, and a promise to offer a wireless home broadband solution that could be a wireline substitute…in addition to divesting their prepaid brand Boost Mobile. No comment from either T-Mobile or Sprint thus far.

5400 App Trackers on iPhones; Windows May Get ‘Invisible’ Background; Google Maps Adds Speed Limits & Speed Traps in 40+ Countries

Yes, it’s so pervasive that we become numb to all the privacy intrusions brought upon us by the web. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that the Washington Post hooked up with an app called Privacy Pro…just to a reporter’s iPhone, and in a week, recorded over 5400 trackers. Privacy firm Disconnect helped with the testing. They found most ‘phone home’ at night when you are plugged in and recharging. Most use the background refresh function (or you may say mis-use) to harvest your data and send it to the app maker AND partners! Some of those are legit…to help app makers figure out how you use the app so they can…obviously…get you to use it more. Others are purely buying your data and bundling it with other info. The Post article noted that even the paper’s own app was phoning home overnights! Apple could do more…at least to let you know what’s going on as the app Privacy Pro does, but it will probably take more laws to really reign this kind of intrusion in.

Microsoft is working on what it terms a ‘modern OS’ that will be something of a Windows Lite…that will run on dual-screen and Chromebook like devices. According to theverge.com, it would include features like updates that would be done invisibly in the background, and one that is ‘deterministic, reliable, and instant with no interruptions!’ What a refreshing change that would be! Also, the system would be secure by default according to MS, with the OS and compute separated from applications. Interestingly, nowhere in Microsoft’s blog post on the “modern OS’ is there a mention of Windows. Redmond says it will be multi-sense. Users can use touch, pen, voice, even gaze…all those inputs to work as well as a keyboard and mouse. It is likely that this modern OS won’t be out until at least 2020.

Google Maps is picking up some features formerly only available on Waze. TechCrunch.com says they are rolling out the ability for drivers to see speed limits, speed cameras, and mobile speed cams in over 40 countries. The new features are rolling out now on Android and iOS. Maps still won’t have the Waze data like crowdsourced advisories of polio ahead, gas prices, road closures, red light cameras and the like.

Dual Screen ZenBook; New iPod Touch; Next iPhone-Dual Bluetooth Feeds; Portland Gets Alphabet Mobile Tracking

We all know you can never have enough screens, right? Now Asus goes over the top with the ZenBook Pro Duo…it has a second screen…half the size of the primary one… just above the keyboard. It’s like Apple’s Touch Bar on steroids. Theverge.com reports that both screens are 4K. The laptop still has a full sized keyboard with a function row. In one example of use, the bottom screen becomes a piano keyboard, and the music lesson is displayed in the primary keyboard. The computer has an 8 core Intel Core i9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 2060 GPU. No pricing or release date is out, but look for it around 3rd quarter.

Apple has updated laptops without much fanfare in the last few weeks, and now has dropped a new iPod Touch. It comes with an A10 Fusion Chip, 4 inch Retina display, and up to 256 Gigs of storage. Macrumors.com says they start at $199 for 32 Gigs. The 128 Gig iPod is $299, and it’s $399 for 256 Gigs. They come i 6 colors.

The next iPhone (and we’re talking 2020, not this September, most likely) may be capable of sending separate Bluetooth feeds. According to engadget.com, some Samsung phones and others already support the feature. It allows two people to listen to separate playlists off the same iPhone, or one to listen over ear buds while another plays different tunes on a home Bluetooth speaker.

From the ‘creepy enough for you’ Department….Portland has signed on with Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs. They will pilot Replica software for a year…and in exchange, according to GeekWire.com, will get access to a massive dataset that mirrors how people actually move through the city and its surroundings. The city says it will help manage issues like safety and congestion. Although it is supposed to basically use ‘deidentified’ mobile location data showing how people actually move through the city to build a mock environment to simulate peoples’ travel activities, how good do you feel about your clone being tracked? Stay tuned, and let’s see the good people of Portland respond. Maybe some will ditch Android phones for iPhones….or start carrying flip phones.

Samsung Prepares 5X Optical Zoom for Phone Cam; Apple Tried to Buy Tesla in 2013; Facebook-Fake Shares Outstrip ‘Real’ News; Huawei Gets 3 Month Reprieve

Samsung is putting finishing touches on a 5X optical zoom, which will go into future smartphones and phablets. 9to5google.com reports that a couple companies already have had 5X, including soon-to-be-banned in the US Huawei. Most only have 2X zoom. If you have ever shot pics at a sporting event, and especially video, you know that using up to 10X electronic zoom blurs and smears badly with motion. Optical zoom is the gold standard. I have an add on lens from Moment on my iPhone and it makes a huge difference (they also make them for Samsung and Google Plxels.) Samsung’s 5X zoom is only 5mm thick…thinner than many 2X zooms out right now. It is likely this zoom won’t make it into the Galaxy Note 10, as that is pretty well set, but could be out as soon as the next round of Galaxy phones and phablets next year.

Multiple sources point to an Apple attempt to buy Tesla back in 2013….for $240 a share. According to electrek.co, the word has slipped out since Tesla’s share price has now dipped under the price Apple was apparently willing to pay. Analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners noted on CNBC today that $240 was the figure Apple was game for back in 2013. He claims to have multiple sources, and says Apple still might have an interest in scooping up the electric car maker. It’s known that their Project Titan electric vehicle works is still going, and apple has continued to poach senior Tesla engineers and execs. As Tesla recently was back to the market to raise a few billion dollars, they might not be interested in selling, but Elon Musk has noted that they may well burn through their cash by the end of the year. Who knows? Apple might step back in.

Academics at Oxford have followed how news is shared on social media ahead of regional elections in Europe coming up. Techcrunch.com says it’s bad news! The scholars have found that junk news is being shared on Facebook at up to 4X the rate of professionally produced news stories from reliable sources. The ‘junk’ news is ‘ideologically extreme, misleading, and factually incorrect information,’ according to the study. The Oxford crew studied shares in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish…all with similar results. Facebook’s efforts to reduce fake news haven’t had much impact. Last month, Twitter had introduced a report option. Since then, only about 4% of the sources circulating on Twitter were junk news, (or ‘known Russian sources’). Twitter users are sharing more links to mainstream news sources…34%…over the study period. A bright spot? It appears from the research that users are on to junk or fake news to a much greater degree than say, the 2016 US elections.

The US Commerce Department has granted Huawei a 90 day license to help existing users. Engadget.com reports that this means they will be able to support existing mobile phone users and rural broadband networks for that period. As part of the deal, Google has now said its suspension of Android services to Huawei is also on hold for 90 days. If you have a Huawei phone, better update your Android system and download any apps from the app store before August 19th!

Glass Enterprise Edition 2 Launches; Google & Chipmakers Freeze Out Huawei; China Overtakes US in Smart Speakers

Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 is now officially out of the X ‘skunkworks,’ and part of Google AR/VR. 9to5google.com is reporting that it looks about the same as the 1st enterprise edition that came out after the original Explorer Edition was discontinued. Edition 2 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1, which Google says is a ‘significantly more powerful multicore CPU,’ and has a new AI engine. It runs on Android Oreo! Edition 2 has an 8 megapixel cam with 80 degree find of view. The 820mAh battery fast charges via USB-C. It connects over WiFi or Bluetooth 5. It is even available with safety frames for industrial environments. Look for pricing and availability in the next few months. UPDATE: The new version of Google Glass is priced at $999, down from $1,599 for the original version, and like the prior Enterprise Glass option, it is not available directly to consumers.

Google also announced that they are cutting ties with Huawei, after the US tariffs and rules. According to Bloomberg, Huawei, can now only access the pubic version of Google’s Android…they won’t be able to update it or get access to proprietary apps and services like Gmail. Huawei is also cut off from the Google Play Store. Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom are also cutting ties with Huawei, as are Micron Technology and Western Digital. Huawei is thought to have about a 3 month supply left of chips from US makers. The company is thought to be developing in-house alternatives to Android and Windows.

Techcrunch.com says the US is no longer the leader in the smart speaker market….China has overtaken that spot. In Q1, Chinese smart speaker shipments grew by 500% and they now hod 51% of the market. Baidu shipped 3.3 million smart speakers, coming in third after Amazon’s 4.6 million and Google’s 3.5 million. Alibabi and Xiaomi each had 3.2 million shipped. Overall, the smart speaker market had triple digit annual growth based on the 1st quarter of this year…specifically at 131%.