Month: February 2020

The GSMA, the organization behind MWC, the world’s largest mobile trade show, has announced that it is officially canceling the show. MWC usually attracts over 100,000 attendees from 200 countries to Barcelona. This year’s show was supposed to take place on February 24-27.

Several publications received a statement about the cancellation. “The GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” GSMA CEO John Hoffman told Bloomberg and the Financial Times. El Diario, El País and La Vanguardia also report that the show has been canceled.

The GSMA has now published a statement confirming its decision to cancel — writing:

Since the first edition of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2006, the GSMA has convened the industry, governments, ministers, policymakers, operators and industry leaders across the broader ecosystem.

With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event.

The Host City Parties respect and understand this decision.

The GSMA and the Host City Parties will continue to be working in unison and supporting each other for MWC Barcelona 2021 and future editions.

Our sympathies at this time are with those affected in China, and all around the world.

Further updates from the GSMA, are on our website and can be found on www.mwcbarcelona.com.

Over the past few days, dozens of big names announced that they would skip this year’s show. LG first announced that it wouldn’t attend the trade show, citing safety concerns related to the coronavirus outbreak. Nvidia and Ericsson followed suit.

On Sunday, the GSMA sent a long coronavirus-related email to registered attendees. The association wanted to reassure attendees by demonstrating that it would implement tough restrictions.

Here’s what GSMA CEO John Hoffman wrote:

• All travellers from the Hubai province will not be permitted access to the event
• MWC Barcelona, Four Years From Now (4YFN), xside and YoMo
• All travellers who have been in China will need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China 14 days prior to the event (passport stamp, health certificate)
• Temperature screening will be implemented
• Attendees will need to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone infected.

But that email made things even worse.

Dozens of companies pulled out of the trade show. In other words, some of the top consumer electronics and telecom companies got scared. And those who thought that GSMA had things under control started to cancel their attendance as well — it wasn’t worth going to Barcelona if many important partners had already canceled.

Some of the companies that announced they wouldn’t be attending include Amazon, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Facebook, HMD, Intel, LG, Nokia, NTT Docomo, Sony and Sprint.

GSMA’s lawyers wanted to make sure that the association wouldn’t be held accountable if there was a single case of coronavirus at the show. But they started another virus — companies pulling out one by one.

As companies usually spend millions of dollars to secure exhibit space and send large teams, canceling MWC altogether is going to be an unexpected financial blow for the GSMA.

According to a report from El País, the GSMA originally planned to meet on Friday and consider the next steps. The association held an emergency meeting earlier today in order to take a decision more quickly.

MWC originally started as a trade show for carriers. Big telecom companies would meet up with hardware vendors and discuss the evolution of telecommunications networks. More recently, phone manufacturers started attending the show to talk with telecom companies and unveil their latest products. Big tech companies, such as Facebook and Amazon, have also had a formal presence in recent years as they have developed important ties with the mobile industry.

According to the World Health Organization, there are over 43,000 cases of coronavirus around the world. Over 1,000 people have died.

Source: Tech Crunch

Apple’s built-in voice assistant won’t help you figure out who to vote for, but it will be able to update you on different races around the U.S. during election season as well as deliver live results as votes are counted. The new feature, announced today, is part of Apple News’ 2020 election coverage, which also includes a series of curated news, resources, and data from a variety of sources, with the goal of serving users on both sides of the political spectrum.

With the added Siri integration, you’ll be able to ask the assistant both informational queries, plus those requiring real-time information.

For example, you may ask Siri something like “When are the California primaries?,” which is a more straightforward question, or “Who’s winning the New Hampshire primaries?,” which requires updated information.

Siri will speak the answers to the question in addition to presenting the information visually, which makes the feature useful from an accessibility standpoint, too.

The live results are being delivered via the Associated Press, Apple says. The company is also leveraging the AP’s real-time results in its Apple News app in order to give county-by-county results and a national map tracking candidate wins by each state primary, among other things.

As it has done in previous years, Apple’s news editorial team has added special coverage of the U.S. election to its app, by working with news partners. This year, Apple’s coverage comes from news organizations inducing ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FiveThirtyEight, Fox News, NBC News, ProPublica, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, TIME, USA Today and others.

In Apple News, readers are able to learn about candidates and their positions, track major election moments — like the debates, conventions, and Super Tuesday — and stay on top of election news and analysis all the way through election night in the U.S. and the subsequent presidential inauguration. A partnership with ABC News announced in December will also bring video coverage, including real-time streams, into the app.

The Siri feature draws on Apple News for its answers and offers a link to “Full Coverage” in the Apple News app, if you want to learn more.

The feature appears to still be rolling out. In tests, Siri was able to answer some questions but defaulted to web results for others, as before. A staggered rollout is standard for Apple launches, however, as new features take time to reach all users.

Source: Tech Crunch

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds have been one of the low-key success stories of the current bluetooth earbud revolution. They don’t have the flash of an AirPod, but they get the mix of form and function just right. Fittingly, their successors just got a quick unveil alongside Samsung’s latest handsets.

As the name implies, Galaxy Buds+ aren’t a full on replacement for the earbuds — they’re more like an enhancement. The fully wireless earbuds look a lot like the originals — which is totally fine. The biggest difference, however, is an important one. Whereas the original buds (the O.B.s) sported 13 hours of battery life, the new versions offer nearly a full straight day (11 hours in the buds, 11 in the case).

That should get you through even the longest flight.

The sound quality gets a solid boost, as well, moving from a single dynamic driver to a dual system, coupled with three mics to help cancel out noise during calls. There’s no active noise cancelation on board, however, which means the buds aren’t really positioned to compete with the likes of AirPods Pro or Sony’s latest fancy headphones. But, then, they’re also priced significantly less.

At $149, they’re $20 more than the standard Galaxy Buds. Probably a small price to pay, given the upgrades here. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see Samsung deliver something more competitive on the Pro side, when the Galaxy Note rolls out later this year, but that’s pure speculation.

Meantime, the Galaxy Buds+ look to be one of the best deals in the space.

Source: Tech Crunch

Flagship prices that routinely top out well above $1,000 are among the chief factors in slowing smartphone adoption. Certainly Samsung has done something to address the phenomenon, both with a number of mid-tier products and the recent introduction of Lite versions of the Galaxy S10 and Note 10.

At the other end of the spectrum is the brand new Galaxy S20 Ultra. Having already broken the seal on a $2,000 handset with last year’s Galaxy Fold, the company just announced the somewhat more reasonable $1,400 Ultra. The most premium of the thee-tier device sports a massive 6.9 inch display to their 6.7 and 6.2.

The camera is the other place the Ultra really sets itself apart from the others. All devices feature enhanced “Space Zoom,” but the premium product bumps the 30x up to a massive 100x, through a hybrid of optical and digital zoom, with a folded lens beneath the large camera bump on the rear.

Like the S20+, there’s a four-camera system on the rear (the standard S20 just has three). There are some differences in sensors in the group, including, most notably, the S20+ wide angle, which is bumped up to a massive 108-megapixels.

The Ultra is also the first device to include Nona Binning, which knocks the normally excessive 108-megapixel camera down to 12-megapixels, while retaining the large amounts of light let in by the sensors for improved photos.

Also of note is the downright giant battery. The Ultra’s is 5,000mAh to the the S20+’s 4,500mAh.

Source: Tech Crunch

Amazon’s dominant position in the U.S. smart speaker market will continue through this year and the next, with rivals like Google and Apple only making slight dents in Amazon Echo market share, according to a report published today by eMarketer. The analyst firm estimates Amazon will easily hold onto its top spot through 2021, when nearly 70% of total U.S. smart speaker owners will continue to use an Amazon Echo device.

Specifically, 69.7% of U.S. smart speaker users will use an Echo in 2020, down slightly from 72.9% last year. In 2021, the number will drop a bit further, with then 68.2% of U.S. smart speaker owners using an Echo device. Meanwhile, 31.7% of smart speaker owners in 2020 will use a Google-branded device, and only 18.4% will use some other brand — like Apple HomePod, Sonos One, or Harmon Kardon Invoke, for example. (The percentages total more than 100% because some smart speaker owners do own more than one brand, the report notes.)

These figures indicate the challenges ahead for Apple HomePod, Google Home and others in claiming a significant portion of the U.S. smart speaker market.

After all, once a consumer buys their first device they’re not as likely to change brands for their next one. Instead, the first device gives the company — like Amazon — a foot in the door to prove their smart speaker’s usefulness. When the customer is readying to expand by adding a new device for the bedroom or kitchen, perhaps, they typically return to buy the same brand again as devices are designed to work together across the home.

That’s not always the case, but it’s more often than not.

Amazon is keenly aware of this trend and has been practically giving away its entry-level device, the Echo Dot. The low-end device is currently selling on the retailer’s site for $29.99, and is often found on sale. During Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale, the retailer slashes Alexa device prices even further — making the Echo Dot a Prime Day bestseller for several years now.

Outside the U.S., however, Amazon’s Echo may not have the same advantages, the report notes.

The Echo is less competitive in some markets because it supports fewer non-English languages than major competitors, like the Google Home.

That said, the U.S. remains a key market for smart speaker adoption, so Amazon’s strengths here should not be discounted.

“Since Amazon first introduced the Echo, it has built a convincing lead in the U.S. and continues to beat back challenges from top competitors,” said Victoria Petrock, a principal analyst at eMarketer. “We had previously expected Google and Apple to make more inroads in this market, but Amazon has remained aggressive. By offering affordable devices and building out the number of Alexa skills, the company has maintained Echo’s appeal,” she added.

The firm also said it expects the number of U.S. smart speaker users to continue to rise over the next several years, but growth will slow. Currently, 28.9% of internet users also use a smart speaker. Next year, that number is expected to reach 30.5%.

This year, the number of smart speaker users in the U.S. will grow by 13.7% to reach 83.1 million. But in 2021, growth will dip into the single digits, eMarketer forecasts.

That doesn’t necessarily mean those users aren’t using voice assistants, however. Instead, smart speakers will only be one way in which consumers interact with technology via voice. Over time, consumers will also begin to use voice assistant built into other devices, like vehicles, appliances, other smart home devices, and more. And let’s not forget that both Google and Apple offer smartphone voice assistants — Google Assistant and Siri, respectively — who’s usage numbers dwarf Echo adoption.

There are some half a billion plus Siri-capable devices out there, and half a billion Google Assistant users. In other words, people interacting with a voice assistant today are probably doing it on their iOS or Android phone, not by talking to Alexa. But on the flip side, it’s fairly remarkable that Amazon was able to create a new market for its Echo speakers, given the massive lead in voice assistants held by its rivals.

eMarketer’s report is not the first to estimate Amazon has claimed a 70% market share in the smart speaker market. A report last year by CIRP had also said the same.

Source: Tech Crunch

It’s a new year and corporate concerns about cybersecurity risk are high. Which means top executives at Fortune 500 companies will do what they always do — spend big on security technology. Global cybersecurity spending is on a path to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the five-year period from 2017 to 2021.

But increasing budgets each year with little strategic forethought is a corporate failing. Further, the lack of proactive monitoring of cyber risk profile almost ensures gaps and vulnerabilities that will be exploited by hackers.

Corporations that don’t formulate a thorough cybersecurity plan and monitor its implementation will encounter more breaches and increasingly become mired in scuttled M&A opportunities. Market research firm Gartner says that 60% of organizations engaging in M&A activity are already weighing a target’s cybersecurity track record, posture and strategy as a key factor in their due diligence. A company that has been hacked is a less attractive acquisition target — hardly a minor point, given that M&A activity globally, led by the U.S., has set records in recent years and is widely expected to maintain or exceed this level going forward.

The most highly publicized example of an M&A-related cybersecurity headache was Verizon’s discovery of a prior data breach at Yahoo a couple of years ago, after formulating an acquisition agreement. The discovery almost killed the deal and ultimately resulted in a $350 million reduction in Verizon’s purchase price.

Enterprises must step up to the plate once and for all and develop meaningful metrics to assess the quality of their cybersecurity protection and monitor its completeness and effectiveness. And the best way to do this is to begin taking steps to incorporate continuous controls monitoring (CCM).

Source: Tech Crunch

It was a roller coaster ride — a short one.

Brandless, a San Francisco-based e-commerce company that made and sold an assortment of “cruelty-free” products in beauty and personal care, household, baby and pet categories has shut its doors less than three years after officially opening them in July 2017.

In a statement provided to the news outlet Protocol, the company cited a “fiercely competitive” retail market. As part of its shut-down, company will reportedly lay off 70 employees, with 10 staying aboard to resolve outstanding orders and presumably figure out how to sell its remaining assets.

The company’s short run won’t come as a complete surprise to industry watchers. In July of 2018, Brandless announced that SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund had invested $240 million in the company in a deal that valued Brandless at a little over $500 million. It was a surprising development, given the company’s relatively nascent business.

As has happened across numerous companies backed by the Vision Fund, including Wag and more recently WeWork, it also meant an executive shake-up. Indeed, by March of last year,  CEO Tina Sharkey, who’d cofounded the company with Ido Leffler, resigned from her position, saying she was moving into a “more focused role” as the board’s co-chair.

At the time, Evan Price, Brandless’s then CFO, became the company’s interim CEO. In May, John Rittenhouse, the former COO of Walmart.com, took the job. His plan, according to Protocol, was to get more of Brandless’s products into brick-and-mortar stores, but by this past December, he’d quietly stepped down and left Brandless. (Sharkey meanwhile left the company’s board last fall.)

Impacts

Certainly, the development undermines SoftBank’s already shaky reputation for savvy deal-making. Though in fairness, Brandless did enter into an industry that has grown cluttered with new entrants, many of them with a good story about the quality of their products but also in heated competition with products that taste and perform similarly to many others on the market in similar price brands.

It’s also worth noting that of the $240 million in SoftBank dollars announced in 2018, only half that amount appears to have made it Brandless. According to a report last year in The Information, SoftBank, eager to see Brandless turn a profit, was providing some of its promised funding to Brandless via installments and was holding back a final $100 million until the company met certain financial targets.

Seemingly, that didn’t happen, and according to Protocol, Brandless’s board, including Price, Leffler, SoftBank managing director Jeff Housenbold, Redpoint’s Jeff Brody and Colin Bryant of NEA, decided to close the company while still able to provide severance packages for employees.

Source: Tech Crunch

Tesla appears to be ramping up installations of its solar tile roofs in the San Francisco Bay area and will eventually roll out to Europe and China, according to CEO Elon Musk, who, in a series of tweets, provided the first substantial update since the company launched the third iteration of its product in October.

The solar tile roof, which Tesla calls Solarglass, is being produced at the company’s factory in Buffalo, N.Y. Musk announced in one of the tweets plans to host a “company talk” in April at the Buffalo factory, an event that will include media and customer tours of the facility.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment seeking more information about Solarglass, including how many installations have been made to date. We will update the article if Tesla responds.

Four months ago, Musk said the company would begin installations in the “coming weeks” and that it hopes to ramp production to as many as 1,000 new roofs per week.

Tesla’s solar roof tiles are designed to look like normal roof tiles when installed on a house, while doubling as solar panels to generate power. The company first unveiled the solar tiles in 2016 and has been tinkering with them ever since. Tesla has conducted trial installations with the first two generations of the solar tiles and opened up pre-orders in 2017.

In an earnings call last October, Musk suggested that the tiles were ready for a widespread deployment, noting that “version three is finally ready for the big time.”

The solar tile roof will initially be offered in textured black, but Musk reiterated Monday plans to offer other color and finish variants “hopefully later this year.”

A pricing estimator on the Tesla website says a solar tile roof with 10 kW of solar on an average 2,000 square-foot home costs $42,500 before federal tax incentives. It also lists $33,950 as the price after an $8,550 federal tax incentive.

Source: Tech Crunch