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September 17, 2020
In New Haven, Connecticut, is a famous little restaurant called Louis' Lunch that fans (myself included) believe invented the hamburger. Louis' makes burgers in gas broilers made in 1898 and serves them on white toast. Options are, shall we say, limited.
On the wall is a sign: "This is not Burger King. You don't get it your way. You take it my way, or you don't get the damn thing."
The thing is, they're the world's best burgers. Every time I stop by, there's a line out the door and halfway down the block.
That's just about how Sony seems to be approaching the next generation of the $160 billion video game business. Sony's showcase online event Wednesday for its coming PlayStation 5 console confirmed the company's proudly, powerfully conservative notion of what is fundamentally important in the mass entertainment industry.
It's not ultimately about how people buy and consume your product. It's not about consumers engaging with one another. It's not about prices. It's not about technology. It is not even about innovation.
Those things can all play a role. But in the end what matters is the content. If the content — created by professionals — is objectively fabulous (whatever that means), then consumers will come. They will pay more. They will put up with inconveniences. They will take it our way.
And Sony is correct. They will.
Microsoft is trying to disrupt gaming both as a business and as a consumer experience. That's because Microsoft has long been No. 2 in this part of the market and is trying to leverage its broad technical and financial power into advantages in gaming. Sony, on the other hand, is betting that the strategy that has made PlayStation No. 1 in the console business for years — a focus on core content, the traditional couch-and-television console experience and traditional consumer spending patterns — will continue to work for at least the next several years.
For Sony, it's all about the blockbuster global franchises (obviously). This is clear to hardcore gamers, but this is what we mean by Sony's strict focus on content. Wednesday's presentation was all about demonstrating that many of the world's most important entertainment properties, from gaming and beyond, will be on PlayStation 5. That included Spider-Man, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Resident Evil and God of War.
It will generally be more expensive and less flexible to choose PlayStation over Xbox, and Sony is fine with that. The entry point for the new Xbox systems is basically $25 a month. Over two years, that buys the cheaper Xbox and also hundreds of games. Retail price is $299 for the box and $499 for the more powerful version (which has a $35/month bundle option including games). On Wednesday, Sony announced that the less-expensive PlayStation 5 version costs $399 and the top-end edition also costs $499. In the United States, the new Xboxes will arrive on Nov. 10 and the PlayStation 5s on Nov. 12.
Technically, the two PS5 versions are largely identical; the $499 version has an optical drive whereas the $399 version does not. With the new Xboxes, the $299 version is less powerful than the $499 version. This will allow both companies to claim a pricing and value victory.
Sony is not offering a monthly payment plan comparable to Microsoft's and does not offer a similarly broad game subscription service. However, Sony did make the attractive announcement Wednesday that PS5 subscribers to its online multiplayer service (which costs $60 for a year) will get free access to 18 top-end games from the previous PlayStation 4.
"For us, having a catalogue of games is not something that defines a platform," Sony's PlayStation chief Jim Ryan told Gamesindustry.biz. "We are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model."
Sony also announced Wednesday that at least some of its new top-end games will cost $70 rather than the $60 that has been customary. U.S. consumers seem likely to generally take that in stride, memes notwithstanding. Rumblings may be louder in Europe, however, where Sony's top game price is now €80 ($95 at current exchange).
Sony is not quite defining PlayStation as a luxury brand, but the company appears comfortable with the vision of PlayStation as a premium experience. "It's a considerable capital outlay, and we want to make sure people know they are buying a true next-generation console," Ryan told The Washington Post.
Sony's ideal is boutique quality at global scale. I don't actually know, but I'm pretty sure that the Lassen family, which has owned and operated Louis' Lunch for at least five generations, has long laughed off the idea of expanding the Louis' burger empire beyond Crown Street in New Haven. You can't build the world's top console gaming franchise like that, but Sony is trying to build and protect the values that got the company here in the first place.
And as with Louis', legions of loyal fans wouldn't have it any other way.
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Seth Schiesel
Seth Schiesel ( @SethSchiesel) is a contributing editor for Protocol focused on the business of video games and adjacent industries. He is a former editorial writer for The Boston Globe, entrepreneur and business reporter, technology writer and video game critic for The New York Times.
People
The future of the cell phone, according to the man who invented it
Martin Cooper comes on the Source Code Podcast.
Martin Cooper with his original DynaTAC cell phone.
Photo: Ted Soqui/Getty Images
January 21, 2021
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
January 21, 2021
Martin Cooper helped invent one of the most consequential and successful products in history: the cell phone. And almost five decades after he made the first public cell phone call, on a 2-pound brick of a device called the DynaTAC, he's written a book about his career called "Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity." In it he tells the story of the cell phone's invention, and looks at how it has changed the world and will continue to do so.
Cooper came on the Source Code Podcast to talk about his time at Motorola, the process of designing the first-ever cell phone, whether today's tech giants are monopolies, and why he's bullish on the future of AI.
<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe frameborder="no" height="200px" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/21947943-bc81-43d9-9eb3-f18341a6c8b6?dark=true" width="100%"></iframe></div><p><em>The following excerpts from our conversation have been edited for length and clarity.</em><br></p><p><strong>I want to get to the phones, but before we do I want to talk about pagers, because I have this deep obsession with pagers. I think pagers are a much better example of the direct predecessor to the cell phone than landlines. Even though you couldn't make phone calls, it seems like spiritually, pagers were cell phones before they were cell phones. You made pagers, and they were huge. And I guess my big question is, why didn't pagers get their due? We kind of skip over them, but it feels like they were a big thing.</strong></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Well they were, at the time we did it. In the U.S. there were at the peak over 50 million pagers. And the principle is freedom. Our biggest customers were people like doctors, who were trapped next to their patients because they have to be available. And the pager set them free! They could go play a game of golf and know that they could get a beep and be at the hospital at 10 minutes. So the concept of freedom, I don't want to beat it to death, is really the essence of what portability is. </p><p>And since you brought the subject up, one of the battles that I'm engaged in today has to do with education and the need for broadband for education. And the solution that the FCC is proposing is wired broadband. Cable! We're going through the same thing all over again. And I am trying to persuade them that if you want to solve the digital divide in education, it's going to have to be with wireless broadband.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p><strong>I agree. And one of the other things you're involved in right now is 5G stuff, right? I spend all of my time talking to people in tech who are, let's say, overzealous about the potential of 5G. Everybody has spent five years telling me that 5G is going to change everything, that it's the panacea of technology, and I'm not sure that I see it. Tell me what you think about 5G: Is it as big of a change in how all of this stuff works as some people like to make it out to be?</strong></p><p>Not really. I think you put your finger on it: 5G is an incremental change. It introduces a couple of new capabilities to what existed in 4G. One of them is the use of millimeter-wave where there is a much bigger bandwidth, but a big handicap is the fact that the millimeter waves don't travel very far. There are other things that are done that reduce latency. </p><p>So it turns out that those two characteristics — very high speeds and low latency — are very useful in things like running a robot. If you've got a factory and you want to run robots, you're going to need those kinds of things. Unfortunately, for people like you and me, 5G does essentially nothing. You have to understand, I think 5G is a wonderful thing, and we have to keep progressing. But I don't appreciate being deluded. And the carriers have done that: They talk about having remote operations and autonomous cars and things of that nature. And guess who's paying for the 5G? It's you and me.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p><strong>OK, let's go back and talk about the DynaTAC stuff. My favorite scene in the book was when you're at a restaurant in Chicago, and a bunch of people have brought you prototypes of this cell phone. And nobody has any idea what a cell phone is supposed to look like. What's that day like?</strong></p><p>Well, you have to start at the beginning of that, because two weeks previously, I approached Rudy Krolopp. Now, Rudy didn't work for me. He ran the Industrial Design Group for this division. But he was a visionary. I told him where we were going to build a cell phone, and he said, "What's a cell phone?" And I described what a portable phone was like, and he reassigned all the people in his group to come up with their concept of what this portable phone might look like. And so I felt I had to reward them in some way. And that's why I invited them to dinner. </p><p>Each of these guys got up and presented what his vision was, of what a portable phone would look like. And they all ended up being a vision of what actually happened. There was a slide phone, there was a flip phone, and there was what they call a capsule phone. These guys were just remarkable. </p><p>We ended up picking what we called the shoe phone — for obvious reasons — because it was simple.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p><strong>You say you picked the shoe phone because it was simple, but it doesn't seem like it would necessarily be obvious that it was simple, because again, nobody had ever done this before. Most of the parts that were required didn't really exist yet. What's your criteria for thinking, "this is the one we can do?"</strong></p><p>It was mechanically simple. It was just the box. Anytime you put hinges and sliders, things of that nature, they're going to break. We actually ended up all agreeing that this was the way to go. And I wanted to make sure that I appreciated the efforts of these other guys. So even though I picked this one, we selected this as a group. Everybody agreed that this is the way to go. </p><p><strong>I guess it makes sense to say, "we have to invent 1,000 things just to make this work. Why invent 1,001 that we don't have to?"</strong></p><p>That's exactly right. [Pulls an original DynaTAC model out.] Calling this "simple" … the insides of this phone are incredibly complex, much more so than a modern phone. A modern phone has a million times the power of this box that we're looking at now. But the complexity, the number of parts — there are like 10 times more parts in the old phone, and they were all hand-soldered together. It's close to a miracle that we got one to work. And they actually got two to work!</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p><strong>The timing of all this is interesting to me, because you're in the middle of this fight against AT&T. It seems like there was something about that fight, and that moment, that made this whole project go. And I was wondering, if Motorola had been super successful, doing fine, under no real threat from AT&T and the FCC, does a project like this happen? Or does it take this kind of existential threat to push something like the phone forward?</strong></p><p>How could I ever have persuaded my management to start investing? They ended up pretty much betting the company, between 1969 when the Bell System announced their desire to continue their monopoly on cellular, and 1983 when we actually have service. This battle that we engaged in lasted 13 to 14 years, and the company spent $100 million of 1970 dollars. So how would I ever have persuaded them, if we didn't have an enemy? If we didn't have to bet our whole company against them, because they would have put us out of business?</p><p><strong>You really don't think you could have pulled it off by yourself? You had a lot of power and trust and autonomy at Motorola.</strong></p><p>We would have come up with a phone, but getting the FCC to move really took a huge amount of effort. The Bell System had 200 lobbyists calling on the FCC alone. They had two guys assigned to each of the nine commissioners. At that time, our total lobbyists force in Washington was three guys, who called on the FCC, the Congress, and all the government agencies. So it really took that kind of challenge to make this thing happen. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p><strong>So let's talk about monopolies. You've truly been in the center of fighting against one, and now we're having these same arguments again, about Google and Amazon and Apple and Facebook. What do you make about the antitrust fight happening right now? Does it rhyme with history to you, as you see all this stuff happening?</strong></p><p>It's a different problem. But it's still a problem.</p><p>There's no question in my mind that some of the practices that Google and Amazon exercise are anti-competitive. And so we've got to do something about it. But there's a difference between that and a regulated monopoly where the government decides what the price is going to be and the monopoly just makes all the decisions, and they have no competitive pressures. That's what Bell Systems did. </p><p>The whole process was different. Bell Labs — which by the way, was an extraordinary organization — had all the funding that they wanted, because they had a monopoly supporting them. And they would invent something, and they would think, "Oh, this is interesting, let's make a product." And they would turn the product over to Western Electric, which was part of the monopoly, and they would make them all and then they would turn that over to the operating companies. And the operating companies would come to you and say, "David, this is what you want, right?" </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p>That's exactly backwards from what we do today. Marketers today look at what people need and want, what problems they solve, and they work backwards through that process. The research guys work on, hopefully, what are going to solve human problems.</p><p><strong>But then on the flip side, then come questions about how power works differently. And especially as we get to privacy and data collection and all this stuff. Bell Systems <em>felt</em> like a monopoly: You could just look at it and be like, "this is clearly a monopoly." It feels messier now, but maybe not any less consequential.</strong> </p><p>I think the real problem is not Google and Facebook and Amazon. It's the people that think they're getting something for nothing. They're not getting anything free, they're giving up their information, which has value, and they're getting less value in return. When people start realizing that and that they have alternatives, the problem is going to get solved. So once again, it sounds like I'm being overly optimistic. And it may be that the government has to intervene in the process, but the real solution there is education.</p><p><strong>Speaking of the privacy and society side of all of this, when you were in the early days of the cell phone, were you thinking about "what does it mean for society when everyone has a phone like this?" You wrote the book that you imagined that when everybody was born, they'd be given a phone number. And were you guys asking this sort of philosophical question?</strong> </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="8">
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</div></p><p>No.</p><p>You know, it's one thing to be a visionary. And I really think that we were visionaries. We stuck our necks out on that thing. But when people asked me what I was thinking of when we made the first public call, it was, "I hope this thing works." </p><p><strong>Before I let you go, I want to talk about AI. Because I think that's another place we have a lot of optimists and a lot of pessimists, and the way you seem to think about where artificial intelligence and humanity meet is about as optimistic a take as I think I've heard. So convince me that the future of AI is mostly good news.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>When I look at a product, I define the usefulness of a product, or at least the interface, as bad, good and optimum. A bad interface is one where you need an instruction manual to work something. If you have a device or a service that is intuitive — you look at it, and you could figure out what to do without looking at an instruction manual — that's pretty good technology. The optimum technology is invisible. It's there, it works for you, it solves your problem. You don't even have to think about it. Well, if you're going to do that, something has to be behind the scenes, making decisions for you. And that's artificial intelligence.<br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="9">
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</div></p><p>There are people that are very optimistic about how quickly that's going to happen. And it turns out that there are some things that the brain does that we haven't even figured out how to copy. It doesn't compute very well, it doesn't remember very well. But other things? It can abstract in ways that machines cannot. And so I think it's going to be a slow process, where the machines are little by little going to take over more and more of the routine things in our lives, are going to make us more efficient. </p><p>Society is much more resilient than people think. People are more resilient. People keep saying, "Oh, no, we are going down the tubes, because the kids aren't talking to each other anymore." Yes, I do see lots of cases where kids sit around the table all looking at their cell phones, but most of them are texting each other. And it takes time for society to embrace and understand new things. </p><p>These things are all new, it's going to take a generation for us to accommodate them. But human minds are very flexible. The brain is amazing. It's going to be many generations before artificial intelligences take over. And when they do take over, we won't even notice it.</p>
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David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
The current state-of-the-art quantum computers are a tangle of wires. And that can't be the case in the future.
Photo: IBM Research
January 15, 2021
Dan Garisto is a freelance science journalist who specializes in the physical sciences, with an emphasis on particle physics. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and is based in New York.
January 15, 2021
The iconic image of quantum computing is the "Google chandelier," with its hundreds of intricately arranged copper wires descending like the tendrils of a metallic jellyfish. It's a grand and impressive device, but in that tangle of wires lurks a big problem.
"If you're thinking about the long-term prospects of quantum computing, that image should be just terrifying," Jim Clarke, the director of quantum hardware at Intel, told Protocol.
<p>The problem is scale. When your quantum computer is <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/noisy-intermediate-scale-nisq" target="_self">based on just a few dozen qubits</a>, it's fine to designate one or more wires to each qubit in order to send and receive signals. But quantum computers are growing, and they will need to reach <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/next-steps-advances-in-quantum-computing" target="_self">thousands, if not millions, of qubits to truly be useful</a> for <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/machine-learning-ai-quantum-computing-move-beyond-hype" target="_blank">companies and organizations</a> — at which point, using wires is going to become a literal knotty problem. </p><p>"It's no longer sufficient to just be able to make a qubit device and talk about the properties of a qubit," said David Reilly, a quantum researcher at Microsoft. "It's all about scale. And it's all about the infrastructure that you need to get there."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Multiple companies investing in quantum computers are now looking toward this future, and trying to develop better methods of controlling their qubits. These quantum control chips are similar to the silicon wafers produced using CMOS technology, with a few alterations to make them work at ultracold temperatures and with qubits. </p><p>In December, <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-debuts-2nd-gen-horse-ridge-cryogenic-quantum-control-chip/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Intel announced</a> its Horse Ridge 2 control chip, which builds off its predecessor to perform more specific applications, such as manipulating and reading qubits. Research <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.01299" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">soon to be published</a> in Nature Electronics looks at Microsoft's quantum control chip, which operates at the coldest temperatures yet: a tenth of a degree above absolute zero. But Microsoft and Intel aren't alone; other companies have also been developing quantum control chips. In 2019, Google debuted <a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/on-path-to-cryogenic-control-of-quantum.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">its own</a>.</p><p>The goal is to help build the <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/next-steps-advances-in-quantum-computing" target="_self">infrastructure required for a future quantum computer</a> that has actual applications for corporations and research institutes, not just one that can <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/supremacy-google-debatable-milestone" target="_self">out-speed classical supercomputers in proof-of-principle tests</a>. </p><h3>Going wireless
</h3><p>Quantum computers rely on unsettling properties of the quantum world, such as superposition: the combination of states exemplified famously by Schrödinger's feline, which can be neither dead nor alive, but exists in some superposition of both states. Quantum effects like superposition are fragile, and tend to collapse out in our noisy, warm, macroscopic world. To preserve the qubits' delicate quantum states, they are kept extremely cold, usually below 1 Kelvin (about -457 degrees Fahrenheit)</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>To achieve those temperatures, qubits are kept in dilution fridges, which use liquid helium to keep their contents ultracold. Those devices have limited internal space and limited cooling power, both of which are hampered by a nest of wires. To explain the impetus for better quantum control, Clarke uses an analogy. </p><p>"Imagine that you are in charge of 100 dogs, and you have to take them for a walk," Clarke says. "Do you take them on 100 separate leashes? Or do you have one leash that fans out and do it more efficiently?" </p><p>In classical computers, control chips are small silicon wafers with some input and output pins that connect to billions of transistors. This CMOS technology is well-known, so it's tempting to slap a classical control chip onto a quantum computer, but it's not feasible. There are two main problems: First, quantum control chips have to operate at extremely low temperatures, so circuits must be designed to dissipate far less heat. Second, quantum control chips require alterations to interface with qubits, which are far more finicky than their classical counterparts. </p><p>Solving both problems entails reworking control chips: though hopefully not so much that they can't still be fabricated at scale, with traditional silicon manufacturing techniques.</p><p>Intel claims its Horse Ridge series (named for Horse Ridge, one of the coldest places in Oregon) operates at 4 K — above the temperature of the qubits it can control — and seeks to build on the company's preexisting expertise with semiconductor technology. While Horse Ridge 1 was designed for a wide variety of qubits, the recently unveiled Horse Ridge 2 focuses on expanded applications for spin qubits, Intel's preferred choice in <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/nobody-agrees-on-how-to-build-quantum-computer" target="_self">the qubit wars</a>. The goal, according to Clarke, is to "customize these low-temperature control chips for different applications." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Google's control chip is similar, operating at 3 K, but is designed for yet another type of qubit, called a transmon. The chip has been tested on a few qubits, but not the 53-qubit Sycamore device that <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/supremacy-google-debatable-milestone" target="_self">made headlines</a> in 2019. <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8865458" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research from Google</a> has focused on reducing heat dissipation from the quantum control chip. Where a classical control chip outputs about one watt of heat, Google's dissipates less than two thousandths of a watt. "Getting power down is going to be very important for any of these approaches," Joseph Bardin, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a researcher at Google, wrote in an email to Protocol. </p><p>Microsoft's quantum control chip relies on similar semiconductor technology, but it is designed to work with topological qubits, though it can be adapted for other qubit architectures. (Worth noting: Topological qubits are theoretical, and have not actually been demonstrated.) </p><p>Where it really departs from Intel's and Google's designs is temperature. Microsoft's quantum control chip can dissipate less than a millionth of a watt, allowing it to stay at a chilly 0.1 K, about the same temperature as the qubits themselves.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><h3>Is it hot in here?</h3><p>The companies insist on the advantages of their own approaches.</p><p>"What is really unique is that our signals are generated at low temperature," Intel's Clarke said. By putting its classical CPU — which sends signals to the control chip — with the control chip at these temperatures, Intel hopes to avoid the noisiness inherent to signals generated by CPUs at high temperatures. Microsoft's Reilly disputes this claim of uniqueness, and notes that Microsoft has generated its signals at temperatures as low as 1 K. </p><p>For Reilly, running the control chip at 3 or 4 K — as Google and Intel do — is much too hot: Though the difference between 0.1 K and 4 K may sound small, it's also the difference between the quantum world and the classical world. By operating the quantum control chip at the same temperature as the qubits, Reilly hopes to avoid the bottleneck between shuffling information from quantum to classical or vice versa. </p><p>"If their control system is at 4 Kelvin, then you still have this I/O bottleneck," Reilly said. "You still have a bird's nest of cables that run from four Kelvin to the millikelvin stage where the qubits are." One possible solution to that would be to bring the qubits up to 4 K — and there is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2170-7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">some progress</a> in that direction.</p><p>All three companies will be presenting updates at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, which will be <a href="http://isscc.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">held virtually</a> Feb. 13 through Feb. 22.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>For now, though, no one has remotely enough qubits to necessitate these quantum control chips, let alone determine which of those compromises is preferable. Testing is still done on a few qubits, or devices that model qubit behaviors — not even the full ensemble of dozens of qubits that make up the current cutting-edge of quantum computers.</p><p>At any rate, quantum computing is still in its heady early days, where firsts are being made, and — despite some corporate jousting about progress — demonstrating the possibility of the technology often takes precedence over long-term plans to make it practical. And at this stage, we don't even know what all those roadblocks might be.</p><p>"Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that making the qubits turned out to be a little bit of a challenge?" Reilly asked. "And the real roadblocks were in the systems integration and the construction of cryogenic control at scale?"</p>
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Dan Garisto is a freelance science journalist who specializes in the physical sciences, with an emphasis on particle physics. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and is based in New York.
Power
What TV remotes tell us about power struggles in streaming
TV remote controls are a major battlefield in the TV wars, which are fought one branded button at a time.
LG's 2021 smart TV remote control features a total of three buttons for voice control.
Image: LG
January 13, 2021
Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.
January 13, 2021
Don't touch that dial: As TV manufacturers are unveiling their 2021 models at this year's virtual CES, they're also giving us a first look at the remote controls that will be shipping with those big, shiny and smart TV sets.
There were a few surprises. LG's remotes come with built-in NFC to transfer videos from mobile devices to the TV, and Samsung's remotes incorporate solar cells that are meant to reduce battery waste. The new crop of 2021 TV remotes also perfectly encapsulates the conflicts and power struggles in the TV industry, from streaming services vying for attention to voice assistant platforms' fierce competition.
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There are more branded buttons on this year's TVs than ever, giving us a taste of the conflicts behind the scenes.
</p><h3>Money and power: The branded button</h3><p>
It's been 10 years since <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-04-netflix-one-click-remotes-coming-to-nearly-every-device-it-str.html" target="_blank">Netflix first partnered</a> with makers of streaming devices and smart TVs to add a dedicated Netflix button to their remote controls. Fast forward a decade, and those shortcut buttons are ubiquitous — and multiplying.<br>
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Take Hisense for example. The Chinese smart TV maker ships some of its 2021 TVs with a remote that has six branded buttons for streaming services, including not only Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, but also free streaming service Tubi as well as relative newcomers Disney+ and Peacock.
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Branded buttons like these have long been paid product placements, with streaming services paying around $1 per remote to put their brand closer to a consumer's fingertips. However, as streaming services grow, these buttons have also become part of numerous turf wars. Netflix, for instance, has for years forced device makers to include a branded button in order to get access to its app, according to industry insiders.
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And while TV makers were long happy to just take the extra revenue, they're increasingly looking to compete with their own streaming services. Remotes from both LG and Samsung feature dedicated buttons for their respective ad-supported streaming services, with Samsung notably only giving branded buttons to two other streaming services (Netflix and Prime Video).
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Not every company is that constrained, though. Including a button for its own collection of free streaming channels, Vizio's 2021 remote features a whopping seven branded shortcut buttons.
</p><h3>Disputed territory: Smart TV platform remotes</h3><p>
While companies like LG and Samsung have long designed TV remote controls to their own liking, TV makers that license smart TV operating systems have much less freedom. TVs that run Roku's operating system need to ship with a Roku remote, whereas TVs using Amazon's smart TV OS tend to include remotes that look just like those that come with the company's own streaming devices.
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Google has given TV and streaming device makers more liberties in the past, resulting in a range of different remotes. Now, the company apparently seems to institute stricter requirements. Google has developed its own reference remote, and is said to "strongly recommend" that manufacturers adopt it, <a href="https://twitter.com/androidtv_rumor/status/1348632021749407744" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to</a> the usually well-informed Android TV Guide Twitter account.
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This new mandate coincides with Google's switch to its new branded user interface, which emphasizes Google-selected content recommendations over individual apps. As part of that strategy change, Google is also imploring TV and streaming device makers to include a dedicated button for its Watchlist feature, which is essentially a bookmarking service for individual shows and movies across desktop, mobile and TV.
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There's only one problem: Netflix is not on board with platforms disaggregating its catalog, and instead prefers that viewers fire up the Netflix app to discover new titles. As a result, <a href="https://www.techhive.com/article/3599868/netflix-drags-streaming-tv-backward-cord-cutters-take-note.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Netflix has forced Google</a> to disable the Watchlist feature for Netflix originals on TV-connected devices. Users can still add Netflix tiles to their Google Watchlist on the web, but they can't edit that list or even rate Netflix titles on Android TV devices — making the Watchlist button effectively a shortcut to disputed territory.
</p><h3>The final frontier: Voice assistants</h3><p>
The microphone button has quickly become one of the most coveted properties on TV remote controls. Google has made its own Google Assistant the default voice platform for Android TV devices, and Amazon is relying on its Alexa assistant for TVs running Fire TV OS. On third-party devices, the two companies are increasingly butting heads.
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For example, South Korean electronics giant LG is using its own webOS as the software platform for its smart TVs, but began adding support for third-party voice assistants a few years ago — a process that hasn't always gone smoothly.
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In 2020, LG let consumers access the Google Assistant via its main voice search button, effectively making it the default voice engine for its TVs. The company also had a partnership with Amazon to integrate Alexa, but Google rejected the idea of sharing the mic button, forcing LG to institute a less than intuitive workaround: People who preferred to use Amazon's voice assistant were instructed to forgo the mic button altogether and long-press the Prime Video button to trigger Alexa.
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This time around, LG decided to give Amazon's voice assistant a slightly more prominent placement in the form of a dedicated Alexa button. To keep all things equal, it also added a dedicated Google Assistant button to its 2021 remote control. And because LG's webOS does offer some basic voice commands to change channels or open apps, the company also kept the default microphone button on its remote.
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The result: three separate voice assistant buttons on a single remote control.
</p><h3>Why those buttons won't disappear anytime soon</h3><p>
Consumers may have mixed feelings about all those branded buttons; some even try to figure out how to <a href="https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/30/shield-tv-remote-remap-netflix/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reprogram their remote controls</a>. However, people do also like cheap TVs, and with the average purchase price of a TV set <a href="https://www.protocol.com/tcl-roku-tv-profit-smartphone" target="_self">declining by 60% between 2014 and 2019</a>, manufacturers have to find new ways to monetize their products. A few dollars here and there can make a real difference in a business with razor-thin margins, and Samsung and Roku have demonstrated that <a href="https://www.protocol.com/samsung-tv-plus-on-phones" target="_self">there's real money to be made</a> in running and heavily promoting their own ad-supported streaming services.
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Some of those extra buttons could be avoided if tech companies just played nice. Amazon, for instance, has long advocated for voice interoperability, which would allow companies like LG to add just a single microphone button to its TV remotes that could offer access to a multitude of voice assistants.
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Google has been steadfast in rejecting such proposals, all but guaranteeing that future TVs will continue to have a whole lot of button bloat.</p>
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Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.
Protocol | Enterprise
How Salesforce, despite big setbacks, had a banner 2020
Amid the chaos of major layoffs and top executive departures, Salesforce announced a key acquisition and managed to report blockbuster earnings.
Marc Benioff is the CEO of Salesforce.
Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images
January 11, 2021
Joe Williams is a senior reporter at Protocol covering enterprise software, including industry giants like Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. He previously covered emerging technology for Business Insider. Joe can be reached at JWilliams@Protocol.com. To share information confidentially, he can also be contacted on a non-work device via Signal (+1-309-265-6120) or JPW53189@protonmail.com.
December 21, 2020
On Aug. 27, Salesforce announced it would lay off around 1,000 employees.
The news came as a shock to many. At the beginning of the pandemic, CEO Marc Benioff committed to making no "significant" layoffs for 90 days. (The 1,000 job losses occurred 155 days after that pledge was made.) But any blowback to the announcement appears to have been brushed aside by some of the company's top leaders.
<p>"If it is any indicator … I have gotten, easy, 10x more emails and texts than all the employee posts combined, from non executive employees, telling us how smart of a move this was, and well orchestrated," Chief People Officer Brent Hyder wrote in an email obtained by Protocol to other executives, including Chief Communications Officer Brad Burns.</p><p>Ending the correspondence, he added: "The haters will be haters."</p><p>Salesforce called it a "difficult communications day for the company" and said Hyder was "trying to be a good leader and lift the spirits of some people who had to do a really hard job." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Still, Hyder's mantra could be the theme for Salesforce's 2020, a year that may mark an important turning point for the 21-year-old company. The $200 billion enterprise software giant announced its most significant acquisition to date, saw key turnover in its executive ranks that is helping to usher in the next-generation of leaders, reported blockbuster earnings amid a global pandemic and is now poised to compete more aggressively against key rivals.</p><p>"It was a year of change, significant change," RBC Capital Markets analyst Alex Zukin said. "They exit this year with an opportunity for rebirth."</p><h3>Gains and losses</h3><p>Back in August, when announcing the layoffs, the company also said <a href="https://s23.q4cdn.com/574569502/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/CRM-Q2-FY21-Earnings-Press-Release-w-financials.pdf" target="_blank">revenue increased 29% year-over-year to $5.15 billion</a> — one of the best quarters in its history. Then in the days following, Benioff said the company <a href="https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/a-few-weeks-after-layoffs-salesforce-will-add-12-00-jobs-over-next-year" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">would hire as many as 12,000 workers</a> in the coming year. But additional reductions are also possible, with Salesforce now aiming to "rebalance" up to 10% of its workforce every year, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/salesforce-cuts-1-000-jobs-after-banner-quarter-stock-surge" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to Benioff</a>. </p><p>The company declined to make Benioff available for an interview and Hyder did not respond to request for comment. </p><p>"We're reallocating resources to position the company for continued growth," Salesforce said in a statement. "This includes plans to hire up to 12,000 by the end of 2021, redirecting some employees to fuel our strategic areas, and rebalancing some positions that no longer map to our business priorities. We worked to support those affected to find the next step in their careers, whether within our company or a new opportunity."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Jump to December, and Salesforce dominated the news cycle with its <a href="https://www.protocol.com/salesforce-buys-slack" target="_self">$27.7 billion purchase of Slack</a>, the company's biggest deal to date. It puts the company on track to expand beyond its core customer relationship management software offering, a strategy that <a href="https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/salesforce-slack-execs-outline-vision" target="_self">executives laid out for Wall Street analysts</a> during the annual investor day in December. </p><p>Despite signaling a new direction for the firm, the deal made some investors nervous about future organic growth: Salesforce's stock dropped nearly 11% in the days following the news of the acquisition and has shown little recovery since then. And as Salesforce embarks on the next chapter of its corporate history, its rivals are also charging harder.</p><p>Microsoft <a href="https://www.protocol.com/tom-siebel--c3ai-blockbuster-ipo" target="_self">recently partnered with startup C3.ai</a> and Adobe to begin selling artificial intelligence-backed customer relationship management software. While Salesforce remains the dominant leader in the CRM industry, Microsoft is seeing explosive growth in its Dynamics 365 business. C3.ai CEO Tom Siebel, who invented the initial CRM product in 1995 at Siebel Systems, said Salesforce has lagged in bolstering its own AI-based offering, called Einstein. For its part, Salesforce says Einstein is running <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2020/11/24/einstein-now-delivers-80bn-predictions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">over 80 billion predictions each day</a>. UBS analysts have also warned that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cloud-software-spending-could-change-2021-ubs-analysts-2020-11#salesforce-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">smaller competitors such as Twilio</a> could take market share from the software giant. </p><p>Still, other industry experts say Salesforce at least has no need to sweat Microsoft in the short term.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>"There's overlap, they will bump into each other, but at the end of the day I don't see them as direct competitors," Edward Jones analyst Logan Purk told Protocol. "Microsoft does a lot of things fairly well, but it's not that they do everything great. And I think Salesforce does CRM great."</p><h3>Executive overhauls</h3><p>Underneath its flashy Slack deal, there were signs that Salesforce was taking steps to reposition its leadership. </p><p>There were <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-most-significant-hirings-departures-2020-keith-block-2020-7#departure-richard-socher-former-chief-scientist-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">several executive turnovers</a> at the company this year. The most significant was the departure of co-CEO Keith Block in February, which created a major power vacuum within the company that is now being filled by the rising influence of chief operating officer <a href="https://www.protocol.com/salesforce-coo-bret-taylor-interview" target="_self">Bret Taylor</a> and chief revenue officer Gavin Patterson, according to industry analysts. Their growing authority was evident in the leadership role both played in the Slack acquisition. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-04/slack-s-butterfield-expects-to-become-a-salesforce-president" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">also poised to play a key leadership role</a> as the company strives to integrate the platform into its own CRM system. </p><p>In December, the company <a href="https://www.protocol.com/salesforces-apac-ceo-ulrik-nehammer" target="_self">overhauled its Asia-Pacific leadership team</a>, with APAC CEO Ulrik Nehammer, chief customer officer Stan Sugarman, chief operating officer Dan Bognar and EVP Lee Hawksley all departing. That's a major shakeup in a key growth market for the company. </p><p>And there were other important departures: Chief data officer Hernan Asorey left for Microsoft, product head John Ball departed for ServiceNow, chief scientist Richard Socher <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/08/former-salesforce-chief-scientist-announces-new-search-engine-to-take-on-google/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">left to form a new startup</a> and Lisa Edwards, the former EVP of strategic business operations, left in October for software company Diligent Corporation. The latter was the latest in a string of defections from high-profile female leaders, including former HR chief Ana Recio and global marketing head Julie Liegl. It did elevate other women to leadership roles, including a promotion for Amy Weaver to chief financial officer. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>There also appears to be some bubbling tensions with current and former employees. Salesforce's former head of government relations, Niki Christoff, <a href="https://twitter.com/nikichristoff/status/1334912895440785415" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recently took to Twitter</a> to lambast Benioff for not allowing her to join the board of directors of another company — a policy she argued was discriminatory against women. Christoff declined to elaborate on her tweets.</p><p>Despite its <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/salesforce-is-named-to-great-place-to-works-worlds-best-workplaces-list-for-third-year-in-a-row/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reputation as an outstanding workplace</a>, current and former employees also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-push-to-improve-equality-yielded-slow-results-tony-prophet-2020-11" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">criticized the slow pace of change when it came to diversity and inclusion efforts</a>. In November 2019, for example, one worker took to an internal chat group to highlight how "incredibly emotionally and mentally exhausting" it had been to "fight for equality and equity related answers and change at Salesforce," according to a screenshot of the message board viewed by Protocol.</p><p>For its part, Salesforce announced several major equality-related initiatives in 2020, including plans to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-double-black-leaders-employees-racial-justice-2020-7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">double the number of Black leaders by 2023</a>. A diversity scorecard released in December, however, <a href="https://equalitydata.herokuapp.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">still showed little progress</a> in improving the number of minority employees.</p><p>It's unlikely any of those developments will put a dent in Salesforce's growth — the company raised its earnings outlook for the fiscal year in December — or change the general public perception of the company. But they do bring about uncomfortable questions for the company, particularly given Benioff's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-salesforce-ceo-pushing-other-ceos-to-do-the-right-thing-2018-4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">willingness to speak out on hot-button political issues</a> like U.S. immigration policy an LGTBQ+ rights.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>But by taking control of one of the most popular applications in use today, Slack, Benioff is all but assuring that Salesforce will — whether you like it or not — remain in many of our lives for years to come.</p><p>Or, to put another way, the haters will still be haters.<br></p>
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Joe Williams is a senior reporter at Protocol covering enterprise software, including industry giants like Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. He previously covered emerging technology for Business Insider. Joe can be reached at JWilliams@Protocol.com. To share information confidentially, he can also be contacted on a non-work device via Signal (+1-309-265-6120) or JPW53189@protonmail.com.
Power
Microsoft wants to use AR to see through fog and smoke
Apple autonomous cars, AI coffee orders, emailing help and other patents from Big Tech.
See what isn't there.
Image: Microsoft/USPTO
December 13, 2020
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
December 13, 2020
It's beyond dark out at 5:30 p.m. these days, so perhaps, as you're stuck at home with nowhere to go, you're tempted to log off your bad screen and onto your good screen a little earlier than you should. Perhaps that's what happened over at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as this was a bit of a fallow week for patents from Big Tech.
That being said, there were still a few neat ones out there: Microsoft is looking into using AR to actually augment what you see; Apple is hard at work on autonomous vehicles; and Facebook, for some reason, is very concerned about the longevity of magnetic tapes.
<p>And remember: The big tech companies file all kinds of crazy patents for things, and though most never amount to anything, some end up defining the future. </p><h3>Alphabet</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=23&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=google.ASNM.&OS=AN/google&RS=AN/google" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><strong>Determining what's newsworthy</strong></u></a></p><p>There have been absolutely no problems with using algorithms to program the content that people see on their social feeds, so I can't see any issue with this patent idea. Essentially, the patent outlines crawling the web for new videos posted to sites and blogs online, and using a corpus of knowledge about the topic at hand, determining whether someone interested in that topic would find this new video interesting, and then alert them to it. It's not entirely clear how this system would moderate what it's finding and showing to people, but I can't imagine how that would be an issue. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/zu-KbFV9PD2FsHJg5gyhUxCoY63Fd7QWFXujNkPhmfNQKkU_ugeCbTLO2RVwumWGn2EHTWyVZp11zCMUndhaEeOf6nwips_QCC7KM9fM0m5tpTUkdbGGhjoGbtr4qUgVtwFhZx8_"></p><p><br><br></p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10857963&IDKey=533B0027C8E8%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D2%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dwaymo.ASNM.%2526OS%3DAN%2Fwaymo%2526RS%3DAN%2Fwaymo" target="_blank"><u><strong>Encasing passengers in airbags</strong></u></a></p><p>This reminds me of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKqdgvsbfFQ" target="_blank"><u>inflatable bubble thing</u></a> James Bond used to save his life in "The World Is Not Enough." Waymo's patent outlines several different ways of automatically encasing passengers in something safe in the event of a crash, ranging from a netting and curtain design that would just hold the passengers in place to a full-on squishy safety bubble. If a self-driving car with me in it has to crash (I hear a lot of talk about Trolley Problems or some such), I hope I'm in the squishy kind. </p><p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/iSpVxtimzP4sorP9WAnx4dASv8vCL3XPrIfqG21DV4uRhrEumGeyX6J47m3m9uvPFvaHc4MWJs5Yen8-OWe99XL9GgohCeS9S5xtrDjwKHycRi4zYBM5jCbhwJUvMaKSbmmtgZsW"></p><h3>Amazon</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=16&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=amazon.ASNM.&OS=AN/amazon&RS=AN/amazon" target="_blank"><u><strong>Making sure you're emailing the right person</strong></u></a></p><p>Have you ever had one of those mortifying moments when you meant to email John Smith at Microsoft and you accidentally emailed John Smith at Apple? It's awkward, to say the least. But Amazon is apparently looking into helping you pick the right email addresses. Using a combination of understanding what the email writer is saying and who they've picked as the recipient would help Amazon's system determine whether they meant to choose who they have. As the patent itself says, "'Stephen is a terrible manager' is probably acceptable to send a friend in a personal interaction, but sending 'Stephen is a terrible manager' to Stephen is probably not okay."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><h3>Apple</h3><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10860034&IDKey=1F7FB7AB7355%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.htm%2526r%3D63%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3D%252522apple%252Binc%252522.ASNM.%2526p%3D2%2526OS%3DAN%2F%252522apple%252Binc%252522%2526RS%3DAN%2F%252522apple%252Binc%252522" target="_blank"><u><strong>Autonomously finding barriers</strong></u></a></p><p>Apple reportedly <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-08/apple-shifts-leadership-of-self-driving-car-division-to-ai-chief" target="_blank"><u>reorganized</u></a> its vehicle project to report to the company's AI chief, John Giannandrea, and this sounds like the sort of work his team would be useful for. The patent covers the sorts of detections that autonomous vehicles will be doing as they venture out into the world, mapping static objects like barriers, fences, walls and the like, and determining that unlike people, vehicles or animals, they likely won't be moving into their path — and if they do, there's probably a bigger issue at play. </p><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=55&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&s1=%22apple+inc%22.ASNM.&p=2&OS=AN/%22apple+inc%22&RS=AN/%22apple+inc%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><strong>Making dragging and dropping on iPad a little easier</strong></u></a></p><p>Apple is slowly acknowledging the fact that, on the iPad, doing complicated stuff with a mouse and keyboard is often easier than with your fingers. But dragging and dropping content from one app to another still leaves a bit to be desired. This patent outlines a future iPad operating system where users could use multiple fingers to drag multiple images (or other files) from one program to another. It also seems to suggest a future where you can have more than two or three programs onscreen at once — rather like windows on a computer. But <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-whats-a-computer-ad-sparks-anger-2018-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>what really is a computer</u></a>?</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><h3>Facebook</h3><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=26&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=facebook.ASNM.&OS=AN/facebook&RS=AN/facebook" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><strong>Making magnetic tapes last longer</strong></u></a></p><p>This probably isn't the first area of innovation that you'd expect a young tech giant to be researching. Facebook's new patent revolves around magnetic-tape data storage systems for archival purposes. Physics and entropy being what they are, these tapes tend to degrade over time, especially with continual use. This patent outlines ways to check on the health of the tapes, how often they're read and written, and to flag to administrators if they're failing. It also includes, according to the patent, a "predictive analysis method used to predict a future health status of the archival tape." Or you could, you know, just stop using tape. </p><h3>Microsoft</h3><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10860587&IDKey=563855505624%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.htm%2526r%3D51%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dmicrosoft.ASNM.%2526p%3D2%2526OS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft%2526RS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><strong>Using AI to get your pumpkin spice latte</strong></u></a></p><p>Microsoft has a new patent about designing a conversational AI assistant that would actually be somewhat enjoyable to talk to; think the assistant in "Her," but more about selling you more stuff than achieving singularity. In one of the examples given, the user wants to know how long pumpkin spice latte season will last at their favorite cafe, BigCoffeeChain. The AI tells them it lasts well into the new year (those must be some resilient pumpkins they over there!), and uses context later in their interaction with the user to provide them with a coupon for a PSL, and later, a few questions about one of the chain's locations. It's a smart way to get more data out of customers in a rather unassuming fashion. At least there's cheap PSLs involved. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Oha5E4L8ci7IL503tnbUida4aJJjFeWu8q0ifmOSSTaV0MirTxs7VhrP80k9X0bps7fT9vQiGJZsQlCXY4a9b5T9-oX8p0m2kWXCeksitvs60BdISR2xKATW5M_z_gIHiBqEFfuL"></p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=10860100&IDKey=43C0020DED14%0D%0A&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.htm%2526r%3D71%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dmicrosoft.ASNM.%2526p%3D2%2526OS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft%2526RS%3DAN%2Fmicrosoft" target="_blank"><u><strong>AR glasses that can see through fog</strong></u></a></p><p>A lot of work in augmented reality seems to focus more on adding things on top of reality rather than actually … augmenting it. But this patent has some interesting ideas on how to augment the real world: It outlines using AR glasses to, among other things, see through things that impede the vision of our mere mortal eyes. Small particulates, like those in smoke, dust or fog, could be filtered out by a digital vision system, and the clearer picture could be overlaid onto the wearer's glasses. This could be useful for your average jogger or commuter, but could be life-saving for emergency services personnel. </p><p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/URzhfe1Kk4iS1HX-WcXwsCEBTAtYpGw0Qp6__24aEypBzSJhRqPfJ3YfLAsHFM6tWyzeyQAysQHU_vAcAocNXcyxPNVXpzNGYemE9c5UG_Cdrw1YAA_-US6886DMwU5rcwOYgIot"></p><p><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=28&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=microsoft.ASNM.&OS=AN/microsoft&RS=AN/microsoft" target="_blank"><u><strong>Auto-detecting out of office</strong></u></a><br></p><p>Sometimes, when it's late on a Friday and a much-needed vacation is staring you in the face, the last thing you remember to do before leaving the office is turn on your out-of-office message. Who wants another moment in Outlook when the beach is calling? Microsoft seems to be working on a solution to this with its patent. It describes a system built into your email that could detect whether you're likely working that day or not. It would see if your usage matches how much you check your email on the weekend, and if it's about the same, it could flag to colleagues who email you that you're not likely to respond. It could also do the same thing if you forgot to turn off our OOO when you're back at work, tan and rested and still thinking about the daiquiris from last week. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
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