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next-upnext upauthorJanko RoettgersNoneDo you know what's coming next up in the world of tech and entertainment? Get Janko Roettgers' newsletter every Thursday.9147dfd6b1
December 7, 2020
Los Angeles-based audio hardware startup Syng is getting ready to take orders for its first product: The company is in the process of starting a presale campaign for Cell Alpha, a still-unannounced spatial audio speaker that is slated to ship in the first quarter of 2021. Syng is selling each Cell Alpha for $1,500, according to a presale page discovered by Protocol. The company is advising prospective customers that they will be able to get the most immersive sound with three or more Cell speakers. (Buyers of multiple speakers are set to receive a small discount.)
Syng didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Syng was co-founded by longtime Apple designer Christopher Stringer as well as key HomePod engineer Afrooz Family. Its staff includes more than a dozen former Apple engineers and designers, and Nest co-founder Matthew Rogers sits on the company's board. The company's existence was first revealed in May 2020, and Protocol first reported key details about Syng's technology last week.
Syng's first speaker, Cell Alpha, is quite literally a big bet on spatial audio:
- Sizing it up. The Cell Alpha is a bit bigger than a basketball, measuring 11.8 inches in diameter, and close to 12 inches in height including a stand connector. It weighs nearly 13 pounds, and ships with a stand that brings the total height to 17 inches. Consumers will be able to buy a modular floor stand that extends to a height of up to 48 inches for an additional $170.
- Making it boom. Each Cell Alpha packs two woofers, facing up- and downward, respectively. There are also three pairs of tweeters and mid-frequency drivers, arranged in a ring for 360-degree audio, and three microphones to measure the acoustics of the room and facilitate spatial sound. At least initially, it doesn't seem like the Cell Alpha is going to offer voice assistance.
- Syncing it up. Multiple Cell Alphas in a room can be synced up for spatial audio, which can be used to emulate virtual speakers, making a set of three Cells sound like a 7.1 setup — something the company calls "triphonic" sound. The speakers are also supposed to allow consumers to rearrange audio objects in a 3D space, according to a patent application filed by the company. In addition, Cell speakers offer more conventional multiroom audio functionality.
- Making it play. Syng is developing a dedicated "Syng Space" app for Cell Alpha speakers, but the speakers will also support AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. There's even an HDMI ARC port for home theater needs.
Syng's spatial audio technology has been described as "revolutionary" and capable of producing sound that's "indistinguishable from reality." In a patent application, the company not only promised to enhance home theater sound, but also laid out a few more futuristic scenarios. For instance, the speakers could add "functional directional alerts or beacons for guidance" to a home, and even reproduce spatial audio for VR and AR wearables.
The $1,500 price tag will all but guarantee that these kinds of audio innovations are only available to a select few, but Cell Alpha may not be the company's only product for long. The Financial Times reported earlier this year that Syng was looking to license its technology to other companies, and Syng's patent application mentioned a number of other form factors, including a possible integration into lightbulb sockets.
A version of this article will appear in this week's Next Up newsletter. Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
Janko Roettgers
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.
Power
Yes, GameStop is a content moderation issue for Reddit
The same tools that can be used to build mass movements can be used by bad actors to manipulate the masses later on. Consider Reddit warned.
WallStreetBets' behavior may not be illegal. But that doesn't mean it's not a problem for Reddit.
Image: Omar Marques/Getty Images
January 27, 2021
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
January 27, 2021
The Redditors who are driving up the cost of GameStop stock just to pwn the hedge funds that bet on its demise may not be breaking the law. But this show of force by the subreddit r/WallStreetBets still represents a new and uncharted front in the evolution of content moderation on social media platforms.
In a statement to Protocol, a Reddit spokesperson said the company's site-wide policies "prohibit posting illegal content or soliciting or facilitating illegal transactions. We will review and cooperate with valid law enforcement investigations or actions as needed."
<p>It's still unclear whether any such investigations will result from this, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is "monitoring" the situation. But the fact is, Reddit writes lots of site-wide rules that have nothing to do with whether certain behavior is illegal. Reddit is <a href="https://www.protocol.com/reddit-powermods-war" target="_blank">unique among platforms</a> in that it leaves much of its content decisions to the moderators of different subreddits. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Still, the company does have rules. It <a href="https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043071072" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">prohibits</a>, for example, "directing unwanted invective at someone" or "following them from subreddit to subreddit," classifying that as harassing, bullying behavior. Redditors aren't allowed to send "large amounts of private messages to users who are not expecting them" or repeatedly post "unrelated/off-topic/link-farmed content," because, under Reddit's <a href="https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043504051" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">rules</a>, that's spam.</p><p>That means if Reddit decides that what r/WallStreetBets is doing is dangerous or disruptive, it could very well take action. That would be tricky for Reddit. Given the range of offensive stuff that regularly appears on the platform, it could be tough to justify outlawing stock trade tips. So far, that hasn't happened, and the Reddit spokesperson was unable to comment on whether any content policies related to the GameStop issue might be implemented in the future. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, for one, seemed unconcerned in a Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/alexisohanian/status/1354407436732387335?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">thread</a> Wednesday. "It's a perfect storm at a time when lots of people are hurting, interest rates are so low, inescapable student loan debts loom, and every major institution has caught Ls during a /global pandemic/ over the last year," Ohanian wrote. "This is something to believe in."</p><p>That may be true for now. But experts on social media manipulation argue the model WallStreetBets has created could morph into a bigger long-term problem for Reddit. "The WallStreetBets manipulation of [GameStop] is now the best template for how one could monetize an influence operation," <a href="https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1354499573209653251?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Stanford researcher Alex Stamos who, as Facebook's former chief security officer, worked on detecting and rooting out foreign influence operations after the 2016 election. "I don't know if any laws were broken this time, but Reddit now has a problem: it is the home for a community of hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated the ability to move billions of dollars based upon the urging of, at most, a couple dozen anonymous accounts."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Facebook's current chief security officer, Nathaniel Gleicher, agreed with Stamos, <a href="https://twitter.com/ngleicher/status/1354517057673392129?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeting</a>: "Good reminder that while political [information operations are] a serious threat, there are many harmful cases of these tactics driving financial gain."</p><p>Gleicher added: "[Money] is a driver across security threats, from hacking to phishing to good old bank fraud, & [information operations are] no exception. Getting ahead of how these tactics enable fraud is essential to disincentivize bad actors."</p><p>To be clear: There's no evidence that the GameStop mob has any ties to a malicious influence operation, and aside from some hedge funds that tried to short GameStop in the first place, it's not immediately obvious who WallStreetBets is hurting. What are hedge funds anyway if not an institutionally sanctioned pool of people betting on the success or failure of businesses for profit? For now, it's easy to root for the underdogs banding together to stick it to the man. </p><p>But one thing that seems obvious from the last decade or more on the internet is that the same tools that can be used to build mass movements — be they political or financial — can be used by bad actors to manipulate the masses later on. If and when that happens, Reddit will have few excuses for not being prepared. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
Power
How Syng wants to take on Apple’s HomePod
Key former Apple employees are helping the secretive startup build spatial audio speakers.
A new patent application features highly detailed renders of a speaker product in development at the secretive audio startup Syng.
Image: USPTO
December 1, 2020
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.
December 1, 2020
Secretive audio startup Syng has a plan to take on smart speaker giants like Apple, Google, Amazon and Sonos: It's building immersive audio speaker technology that's meant to replace your 5.1 living room setup, make you feel like you're on stage with the band, and one day supply the soundtrack for apps running on your AR glasses.
Word of Syng's existence first surfaced in May, when the Financial Times reported that the company was helmed by longtime Apple designer Christopher Stringer as well as key HomePod engineer Afrooz Family. Now, a newly filed patent application reveals not only how Syng's technology works but also shows detailed renders of what may well be Syng's still-unannounced first product.
<p><a href="http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20200367009.PGNR." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The application</a>, filed in late November, explains how Syng wants to use spatial audio tech to replace physical devices with virtual speakers, how it may use AR platforms like Apple's ARKit to map out a room, and how it could recreate immersive 3D soundscapes. It also shows off Syng's deep roots in Cupertino: At least a dozen of the 18 credited co-inventors previously worked at Apple.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Syng did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Syng has been in stealth mode since its founding in 2018, with <a href="https://syngspace.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a website</a> that includes little more than the company's minimalistic three-dotted logo. "We are committed to reimagining the world of audio by focusing on the future-state of sound as a gateway to the senses and a catalyst for new experiences," the company's LinkedIn page nebulously proclaims, while revealing little else about its technology. The Financial Times was equally vague in May, reporting that Syng's speakers would create "revolutionary sound" that was "indistinguishable from reality."</p><p>Syng's newly filed patent application fills in most of the blanks. It includes detailed renders and descriptions of a spherically shaped speaker that packs two woofers facing upward and downward, as well as three pairs of mid-frequency drivers and tweeters arranged in a ring for 360-degree beam-forming. The speakers, dubbed "cells" by the company, can be placed on a special stand, wall mount or hung from the ceiling.</p><p>It's worth noting that companies regularly attempt to patent products and technologies that don't ultimately make it to market, and that images in patent filings can be deceiving. However, the renders in the Syng patents are notable for their level of detail, down to the circuitry and the locking mechanism for a stand, suggesting a fairly advanced development stage.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>The filing also offers some clues about how the company intends to market the product: A setup of Syng cells is meant to be modular and expandable, with the patent application noting that it "can be constructed using only a single cell and enhanced (potentially due to the acquisition over time) with additional cells."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg1MjgzMi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MTI3MjQ4Nn0.QGzYuE6720xJ6NH5TnD5qChs0S0Ow0ZsIZCvchAoPow/img.png?width=980" id="ec947" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="162d368716fc1e71c99ffc444cc11775" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Syng vs. 7.1 speaker setup">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Syng wants to recreate the sound of a traditional 7.1 home theater setup with just 3 speakers.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image: USPTO</small></p><p>Each cell setup is controlled by a master speaker that knows how many speakers are in the room, as well as other data about its environment. That master cell then renders incoming audio for spatial playback, and pipes it to the other speakers in the room, which is where the immersive audio magic comes in. For instance, if someone was watching a movie with 5.1 surround sound, Syng cells would be able to render the audio in a way that makes it sound like the listener was surrounded by multiple virtual speakers in addition to the physical cells.<br></p><p>"Given the spatial control of the audio, any number of different conventional surround sound speaker layouts (or indeed any arbitrary speaker layout) can be rendered using a number of cells that is significantly smaller than the number of conventional speakers that would be required to produce a similar sound field using conventional spatial audio rendering," the patent application reads. </p><p>In other words: Syng cells are meant to re-create 5.1 or 7.1 sound with just two or three physical speakers.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg1Mjc5MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODU5Njk2OX0.P28Ez2bZieJiefDKTOcs4m-rQS8e-e5l5vWYvuzp2kw/img.png?width=980" id="47ed8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="457f64154e2e72f52f9e43d72891f15d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Syng AR functionality">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Syng may use mobile devices with depth-sensing capabilities to map rooms for spatial audio.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image: USPTO</small></p><p>The speakers shown in the filing include microphones used for both voice control as well as to map the sonic environment. A mobile app meant to control the speakers could also be used to aid spatial mapping, with one screenshot showing a mobile AR interface to facilitate 3D scanning of a room. Apps will also allow consumers to change the arrangement of audio in the room and place individual instruments within a space.<br></p><p>The functionality of Syng goes beyond music: The patent application also mentions ambient sound spaces, including audio re-creations of a jungle, complete with birds and monkeys. In addition to just providing these sound spaces as background audio, Syng envisions more utilitarian applications, including "functional directional alerts or beacons for guidance" for home safety and similar use cases. </p><p>Even more intriguing is the combination of Syng cells with AR and VR. Syng's filing mentions the ability to connect spatial audio with AR visuals. This could include cover art or more abstract sound visualizations. </p><p>Syng also envisions its technology to take cues from sensors in AR and VR wearables to reproduce audio in true 3D, thanks to an additional cell suspended from the ceiling for Z-axis coverage. "Audio can be rendered in a manner that tracks the head pose of a user wearing a virtual reality, mixed reality, or augmented reality headset," the filing reads. Immersive audio without the need to wear headphones could be especially useful for lightweight AR glasses.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>To pull all this off, Syng is relying on an impressive talent roster. A third of the company's employees on LinkedIn indicate that they previously worked at Apple; other former employers include Harman, Bowers & Wilkins, Nest and ROLI. In addition to Family and Stringer, notable members of the team also include longtime Apple user interface designer Bas Ording and Chris Kyriakakis, a USC professor who has been teaching audio signal processing for more than two decades. Nest founder Matthew Rogers is a board member, and former Vevo CEO and Magic Leap CCO Rio Caraeff recently began advising the company. </p><p>It's still unclear when Syng will release its first product. The Financial Times reported in May that the company was targeting Q4 of this year, but that the pandemic may lead to delays. Still, there are some signs that Syng may be gearing up for a product launch: The company <a href="https://trademark.trademarkia.com/cell-alpha-90122340-mod.html" target="_blank">registered a trademark</a> for "Cell Alpha" in August.</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.
Power
With the HomePod Mini, Apple is playing catch-up in the smart speaker space
The new device is priced like the Nest Audio and Amazon Echo, but it may not sound as good.
Apple made some compromises to get the price down to just $99.
Image: Apple
October 13, 2020
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.
October 13, 2020
Apple used its iPhone event Tuesday to introduce the HomePod Mini, a new $99 spherical smart speaker that is meant to close the gap with competing products from Amazon and Google. However, with limited support for third-party music services at launch and no way for developers to bring their services to the device, Apple is still playing catch-up in the smart speaker space.
Apple made some compromises to get the price down to just $99. Most notably: Unlike the original HomePod, the new device isn't adjusting the sound to its environment. This allowed the company to use just three mics, instead of the six that it put into the original $300 HomePod.
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The HomePod Mini is instead monitoring the music it plays in real time, and tweaks playback on the fly. That's similar to the approach <a href="https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/next-up/smart-speakers-smart-sound" target="_self">Google took with its new Nest Audio speaker</a>, and it makes sense: With a smaller speaker, there is less bass and distortion to deal with.
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<strong>Speaking of Google:</strong> People who have Nest speakers, or Amazon's Echo devices, will have recognized some of the other software features announced by Apple on Tuesday as well. For instance, the competition has long offered the type of intercom functionality provided by the HomePod. <a href="https://twitter.com/gigastacey/status/1316064002938552321" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">As IoT podcaster Stacey Higginbotham put it</a>: "Apple has just copied everything Google Assistant does on its home devices and stole Amazon's form factor."
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Still, that in itself is a notable shift for Apple. When the company first announced the HomePod in 2017, it put a big emphasis on sound quality and positioned Siri primarily as a way to control music. On Tuesday, execs actually called the HomePod Mini a smart speaker — a description that has largely been absent from the original HomePod marketing material.
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Even with a smarter Siri, the HomePod Mini is still lacking some of the features offered by the competition:
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<li><strong>No Spotify, at least for now.</strong> At launch, the Mini will only support Apple Music. Support for third-party music services is promised to follow in the coming months, starting with Pandora and Amazon Music. The omission of Spotify during Tuesday's presentation raised some eyebrows, though, and will be worth keeping an eye on. It does sound like the HomePod Mini and its larger sibling will eventually be open to all third-party music services. But <a href="https://www.protocol.com/epic-spotify-match-apple-nonprofit" target="_self">given the public spat between the two companies</a> over App Store fees, we'll have to wait and see if and when Spotify actually makes it to the device.</li>
<li><strong>No third-party skills.</strong> Apple has put a lot of work into improving the Siri experience on HomePod, but the assistant still doesn't have the kind of third-party developer platform available for Alexa and the Google Assistant. This means that consumers will be largely confined to the functionality offered by Apple, and that developers will instead embrace competing devices for voice-first services.</li>
<li><strong>Just a single driver.</strong> The original HomePod wasn't much of a commercial success, but people who bought it often praised its sound quality. For the HomePod Mini, Apple reduced the audio hardware down to a single driver, combined with passive radiators for sound propagation. The Nest Audio, on the other hand, combines a woofer and a tweeter, and the new Amazon Echo has a woofer and two tweeters. The big question here is: Will the $99 HomePod Mini sound as good as other smart speakers in its price category, or will its sound be closer to that of the $50 Nest Mini or Echo Dot?</li>
</ul><p>
The HomePod Mini will start shipping in mid-November, and we probably won't know much about its commercial success until Apple reports financials for its holiday quarter sometime in early 2021. However, investors in smart speaker maker Sonos apparently didn't think the device was much of a match for the competition: After briefly cratering during the Apple event, Sonos' stock price was up 5% following the HomePod Mini announcement.
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<em>This story will appear in Thursday's edition of our entertainment newsletter, Next Up. </em><a href="https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/" target="_self"><em>Sign up here</em></a><em> to get it in your inbox.</em></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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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 | China
More women are joining China's tech elite, but 'Wolf Culture' isn't going away
It turns out getting rid of misogyny in Chinese tech isn't just a numbers game.
Chinese tech companies that claim to value female empowerment may act differently behind closed doors.
Photo: Qilai Shen/Getty Images
January 27, 2021
Shen Lu is a Reporter with Protocol | China. She has spent six years covering China from inside and outside its borders. Previously, she was a fellow at Asia Society's ChinaFile and a Beijing-based producer for CNN. Her writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, The New York Times and POLITICO, among other publications. Shen Lu is a founding member of Chinese Storytellers, a community serving and elevating Chinese professionals in the global media industry.
January 27, 2021
A woman we'll call Fan had heard about the men of Alibaba before she joined its high-profile affiliate about three years ago. Some of them were "greasy," she said, to use a Chinese term often describing middle-aged men with poor boundaries. Fan tells Protocol that lewd conversations were omnipresent at team meetings and private events, and even women would feel compelled to crack off-color jokes in front of the men. Some male supervisors treated younger female colleagues like personal assistants.
Within six months, despite the cachet the lucrative job carried, Fan wanted to quit.
A woman we'll call Zhang had a similar experience at her former employer, Baidu. She told Protocol that senior colleagues joked that Zhang and her younger female coworkers were hired to "please their eyes."
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Alibaba and Baidu look and act like they value female empowerment. Alibaba, the ecommerce giant, hosts a <a href="https://www.alizila.com/speakers-talk-womens-empowerment-at-alibaba-conference/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship</a> every year. Its founder, Jack Ma, has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUuEryO0ogg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">positioned</a> himself as a champion for women and has repeatedly said that Alibaba <a href="https://www.qianzhan.com/people/detail/271/140925-908063c9.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">owes its success to its female workers</a>. Ma has touted the company's <a href="https://ishare.ifeng.com/c/s/7pVlMyNV25i" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">relatively hefty share</a> of women in top management — currently, <a href="https://www.alibabagroup.com/cn/about/leadership" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">six out of 14</a> of the most senior roles are staffed by women. Search engine behemoth Baidu, too, likes to<a href="http://d.youth.cn/newtech/202012/t20201230_12640898.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> tout</a> its relatively high ratio — <a href="http://esg.baidu.com/Uploads/File/2020/06/18/u5eeb598d72472.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">46%</a> — of women in management.
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"Workplace equality is a core value of Baidu. Female employees account for 43% of Baidu's workforce and 46% of management. Women play significant roles as top executives of the company driving technology innovation and strategy," Baidu said in an email reply. Alibaba did not respond to Protocol's requests for comment.
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So why do women like Fan and Zhang have such a rough go of it?
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This is the terrible paradox at the heart of Chinese tech, one that will threaten its capacity to innovate in the future. A wave of Chinese women are joining elite tech companies and their boardrooms, often in numbers that compare favorably to tech industries abroad, but it turns out that getting rid of sexism is far more than a numbers game. Women in Chinese tech are marginalized, demoralized and exhausted. When they get home, they're still expected to shoulder most of the childcare and household chores.
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The result: Those who manage to ascend have to learn to play — and win — a man's game. This paradox is going to sharpen as more women enter tech and become aware of gender inequality.
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Women are increasingly populating Chinese tech offices. Data shows that some of China's biggest internet companies, including <a href="https://pic2.zhimg.com/80/v2-64ca7bcc8aa012b59dbd90cdb6c7b809_1440w.jpg" target="_blank">ByteDance</a>, <a href="http://esg.baidu.com/Uploads/File/2020/06/18/u5eeb598d72472.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Baidu</a> and ride-hailing giant <a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/5260027.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Didi Chuxing</a>, each employ at least 40% female staff. By way of comparison, <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/4467/female-employees-at-tech-companies/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">statistics show</a> that female employees fill between 28% and 42% of roles at America's five largest tech companies. In India, women make up <a href="https://go.451research.com/women-in-tech-india-employment-trends.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">34%</a> of the tech workforce; in the U.K., the figure is <a href="https://technation.io/insights/diversity-and-inclusion-in-uk-tech-companies/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">19%</a>.
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Women have also made it into Chinese tech leadership. <a href="https://www.svb.com/trends-insights/reports/women-in-technology-2019" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Seventy percent</a> of Chinese startups have at least one female executive, a higher proportion than companies in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, according to a 2019 survey conducted by Silicon Valley Bank. And more than 1,000 women have<a href="https://xw.qq.com/cmsid/20200308A0L9J400" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> made it into the boardrooms</a> of China's public tech companies, according to a study conducted by Tianyancha, a data technology service company.
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Yet Alibaba and Baidu are not the only "greasy" companies. Leading Chinese tech firms, including Tencent, have posted job ads depicting their female employees as "pretty" or "goddesses" to attract male candidates, according to a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/04/23/only-men-need-apply/gender-discrimination-job-advertisements-china#_ftn99" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2018 Human Rights Watch report</a>. In 2017, WeChat's parent company Tencent apologized after <a href="https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1815/video-of-women-on-their-knees-deals-blow-to-tencent-image" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">footage emerged</a> of a corporate event where female employees were kneeling while using their teeth to open water bottles placed between men's legs. A <a href="https://www.digitaling.com/articles/16221.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2012 job ad</a> for food-delivery group Meituan declared that "finding a job equals finding a woman," featuring a suggestive image of a thong hanging between a woman's legs. "Do what you most want to do," the ad concluded, using a verb for "do" that colloquially means "fuck." In the years since, Meituan has repeatedly depicted young women in its promotional ads as <a href="https://www.yunyingpai.com/extend/518996.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">food on the plate</a> for delivery.
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In gender studies, the <a href="https://tidsskrift.dk/scandinavian_political_studies/article/download/32616/30682" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">theory of critical mass</a> hypothesizes that deliberative bodies must be made up of at least <a href="https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/eql-men/index.html#:~:text=Women%20have%20gained%20the%20right,States%20of%20the%20United%20Nations.&text=The%20figure%20of%2030%20percent,content%20of%20political%20decision%2Dmaking." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">30%</a> women to impact policymaking. But at least when it comes to tech, it's clear that neither a high percentage of female execs nor a workforce approaching gender parity equate to workplace equality. Julie Yujie Chen, who teaches at the University of Toronto and has researched the experience of Chinese women in tech, doesn't believe the presence of more women executives in a Chinese tech company will work in favor of female employees. "Women in tech is not a representation issue," she told Protocol. "It is about challenging the norms."
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Lin Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire who has interviewed dozens of female entrepreneurs in China's tech companies, said many of the women who thrive in this ultra-competitive, male-dominated industry not only have become resigned to workplace masculinity and sexism, but have internalized it. "Because of the generally hostile gender culture in China, there's not much solidarity among women," Zhang said. "Now that they're up there, they feel like, 'I have paid my dues. It's your turn.'"
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Alibaba's Fan echoes this: "Although women are much present in Alibaba's senior management, they all have transformed themselves to be greasier than the men. That's how they entered that powerful circle."
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Shi is a 30-year-old manager of a content-producing team at Nasdaq-listed video-sharing platform Bilibili. Like Fan and the other female tech workers interviewed for this story, she spoke to Protocol on the condition that she be identified by a pseudonym to avoid retaliation from her employer. Shi said the women in her company leadership "completely subscribe to the 'wolf' mentality. They are just as territorial, aggressive and exploitative as the men."
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One result is tech products that objectify women and reinforce gender stereotypes, at least in the way they are marketed and used. Didi Chuxing is helmed by a woman — company president Jean Liu — and Didi's staff was <a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/5260027.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">40%</a> female in 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are available. However, it encountered scandal with Hitch, a carpooling service launched in 2015 that suggested hookups between drivers and passengers in its 2018 <a href="https://new.qq.com/omn/20180828/20180828A08PZK.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ads</a>. Two female Hitch passengers were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/business/didi-chuxing-murder-rape-women.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesworld" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">raped and killed</a> that same year. The general manager at Hitch was a woman named Huang Jieli.
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Even relatively "woke" Chinese companies demand a lot of their employees. A major culprit is Chinese tech's infamous 996 work schedule — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days per week — which can wear workers down. I spoke with most interviewees after 10 p.m. in China, after they had finished a long day's work. Message alerts from colleagues often interrupted our conversations.
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This work culture further disadvantages women because of the larger milieu in which they live. Women still shoulder most of the childcare and housework burden in Chinese households. A 2019 National Bureau of Statistics <a href="https://cnlgbtdata.com/files/uploads/2020/01/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC%9A%E4%B8%AD%E7%9A%84%E5%A5%B3%E4%BA%BA%E5%92%8C%E7%94%B7%E4%BA%BA2019EN-final.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">report</a> showed that women spent more than twice as much time as men on unpaid household work. "The lack of reliable childcare service becomes a structural barrier for women to advance their career," said Chen, "especially in sectors like the tech industry."
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Although a large number of young Chinese women have joined tech, they are more likely to concentrate at the lower end of the skill and productivity spectrum, such as human resources, public relations and business operations. Programming, often the power center, remains a male-dominated division, with female programmers comprising only 10.4% of its ranks in 2020, according to a<a href="https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/109185515" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> report by Chinese digital working platform Proginn</a>. (In the U.S., figures range between <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126823/worldwide-developer-gender/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">8%</a> and <a href="https://www.frgconsulting.com/blog/female-developers-workforce/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">11%</a>.)
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Of course, China has its share of relatively egalitarian companies. Take ByteDance. While it spent last year at the center of U.S. controversy over data-sharing with Beijing, it's seen at home as valuing diversity and inclusion. Dong, who works in the ByteDance HR department, told Protocol she chose the company for its relatively egalitarian culture. It was the only prospective employer that did not inquire about her marital status when she was job-hunting in 2018, and the supervisor of the department she was interviewing for was a woman in her late 30s.
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But Dong thinks ByteDance is swimming against the tide. She says several senior female colleagues in her team still had to quit because they couldn't juggle work and childcare demands. It's not a problem unique to China, but female workers there are getting less help than in other countries. "Tech companies in other countries are trying to create a better environment for female workers who face similar social expectations," Dong said. "But in China, they won't specifically create supportive policies for you. The baseline is lower. It's like, 'I'm already doing well by not treating you badly.'"
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Shen Lu is a Reporter with Protocol | China. She has spent six years covering China from inside and outside its borders. Previously, she was a fellow at Asia Society's ChinaFile and a Beijing-based producer for CNN. Her writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, The New York Times and POLITICO, among other publications. Shen Lu is a founding member of Chinese Storytellers, a community serving and elevating Chinese professionals in the global media industry.
New patent filing offers a first look at Sonos headphones
The headphones product is meant to work together with existing Sonos speaker setups.
Images included in the filing show two possible designs for the company's wireless over-ear headphones.
Image: USPTO / Sonos
September 1, 2020
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.
August 31, 2020
Sonos is getting serious about expanding beyond the home. The smart speaker maker was awarded a patent last week that provides the strongest evidence to date for Sonos-made headphones. Not only does the patent confirm that the company has been working on a long-rumored headphone product, it also mentions a number of possible features and outlines how it would integrate with existing Sonos speaker setups.
Bloomberg first reported in early 2019 that Sonos was looking to launch its own headphones, but the company had been able to avoid any subsequent leaks until now.
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"As a company founded in innovation, we're always working on different ideas and innovations that can help the world listen better," a Sonos spokesperson said. "We continue to make investments in our strong patent portfolio with dozens of new patents each year. We do not have additional information to share at this time regarding our future product roadmap."
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Sonos executives <a href="https://www.protocol.com/sonos-radio-free-ad-supported-streaming-stations" target="_self">have for some time said</a> that they were looking to launch products that work outside of the home. The company launched its first portable speaker, the Sonos Move, a year ago, and <a href="https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/sonos-snips-acquisition-q4-2019-earnings-1203410771/" target="_blank">told investors</a> at the time that it saw "significant opportunities" in the out-of-home market. An expansion beyond its existing smart speaker products could also allow Sonos to further diversify its business and add money to its coffers to sustain its <a href="https://www.protocol.com/sonos-services-ikea-google" target="_self">legal fight against Google</a> for alleged patent infringements.
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The patent, which Sonos first applied for in September 2019, describes in detail how Sonos-made headphones might work and look. Images included in the filing show two possible designs for the company's wireless over-ear headphones. Judging from the filing, it is likely that the headphones will come with a noise cancellation feature that can be turned on and off, as well as one or more microphones for voice control. Sonos was the first smart speaker maker to support multiple voice assistants in its products, and the company is currently also developing a dedicated voice assistant for music control in-house.
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It's not uncommon for companies to include features in a patent filing that won't make it into a final product, or describe a number of different implementations of the same feature. In this case, Sonos describes a number of different control mechanisms, including a knob extending from the headband as well as touch sensors, further signaling that the product will come with advanced control mechanisms for music streaming services. It also mentions a line-in port that could double as an interface for charging, as well as a possible USB-C charging port.
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While many of the features mentioned in the filing are common for wireless headphones, one of the more interesting aspects is how the device might integrate with existing Sonos speakers through something the company calls a "swap."
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From the filing: "For example, if a particular piece of content play is currently playing on the wireless headphone, a swap changes the playback to play that piece of content on one or more other playback devices on the local network."
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This type of handover would make it easy for people to play music on their headphones while out and about, and then shift playback to their hi-fi system when they return home. Beyond this, it also indicates that Sonos is likely going to target its existing customer base for this new product. Sonos has long relied on repeat purchases from existing customers. In 2019, 37% of its newly sold products were registered by consumers who already owned at least one Sonos speaker.
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Sonos has faced some economic pressure from the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in layoffs of 12% of its staff in June. The company has also been stepping up its fight against bigger competitors like Google and Amazon. It sued Google for alleged patent infringement in January. Last month, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence <a href="https://www.protocol.com/sonos-amazon-echo-predatory-pricing" target="_self">told Protocol that Amazon's practice of selling its Echo speakers below cost was illegal.<em></em></a>
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<em><strong>Updated:</strong> This post was updated at 12:22 p.m. PT to include Sonos' statement.</em>
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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.
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