Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 02/12 – Google Adds Pixel-Exclusive Photo Editing Features To Google Photos

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme Ride Home for Friday, February 12th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Google adds some photo editing features to Google Photos that maybe points to a larger subscription play. Is Apple's new AR app for TV Plus a sign of things to come there as well? Disney Plus numbers are

Starting point is 00:00:53 amazing. Apple Watch estimated numbers are impressive. And of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Google has added some of its vaunted pixel exclusive photo editing features to Google Photos for all Android users, but there is a catch. These new features are paywalled behind an existing subscription to Google I, quoting the verge. The paywalled editing features have been rumored for some time, but today marks the official announcement of the new program. Specifically, Google is offering some of its more recent machine learning powered editing tools like its enhanced photo blur, portrait light, and color pop features.

Starting point is 00:01:36 that it started offering alongside the Pixel 5 last fall to a broader audience. As Google clarified to the verge when the paywall was first discovered, the company isn't taking away existing versions of features like Portrait Blur or Color Pop from free Google Photo users. The current iteration of those features, which work with newer photos that offer depth data, such as Portrait Mode shot, will still work for everyone. But the new pixel and subscription-only version promises to take things a step further and allows users to apply those effects through the power of machine learning to older photos

Starting point is 00:02:10 that don't have that existing depth data. Pixel users will still get access to the features for free whether or not they subscribe to Google One. Along with the new editing features, Google is also offering new AI powered filters, a new dynamic option that automatically enhances brightness and contrast, and sky suggestions that can tweak skylines for more dramatic effects, end quote. Again, essentially this is if you have a pixel, you can get these new features for free. Everyone else needs to be a paying Google One subscriber. Reminder that Google One subscriptions start at $1.99 a month, and mainly they offer you additional cloud storage options. But forget Apple Prime.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Is this the first step towards a Google Prime? One subscription to rule them all, at least in the Google ecosystem? In a similar vein, this is an interesting move. Apple has launched its first-ever stand-alone Apple TV Plus AR app with a For All Mankind backstory and exclusive content for that show for users that have the latest iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro models, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. Apple's rumored augmented reality experience for Apple TV Plus has arrived in the form of For All Mankind Time Capsule. The standalone iOS app is built using Apple's AR kit framework and even includes exclusive experiences for the latest iPad Pro, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Starting point is 00:03:46 For all mankind, Time Capsule takes place in the decade between the first and second season of the space drama that plays out on an alternative historical timeline. The app lets you interact with virtual objects from a box of items placed in the real world through the lens of your iPhone or iPad. The app uses sound and music to enhance the story. through the experience you see the world from the perspective of a teenage Danny Stevens, the son of astronaut Tracy and Gordo Stevens in the series. For All Mankind, fans will appreciate elements in the AR experience like social studies homework

Starting point is 00:04:17 that echoes the alternate timeline in history in which the show takes place, and there is even a newscast anchored by the same anchor who appears in the For All Mankind Universe. While Time Capsule is meant to add to the story in between seasons for All Mankind, You don't have to be caught up on the Apple TV Plus series to enjoy the AR app. For instance, as you progress through the timeline in the augmented reality app, you interact with an Apple 2 computer, which makes a cameo in season 2. That's capable of a dreamed up predecessor to email called D-mail for digital mail.

Starting point is 00:04:52 There's even a text adventure space game for the Apple 2, end quote. Disney, and everyone else will be doing something similar soon. In fact, there's lots of smoke lately around buildouts around popular streaming programming, everything from exclusive podcasts to exclusive apps, Discord channels, the whole nine yards. We're used to these days shows having a whole ecosystem of fandom, and the content creators are realizing, hey, why don't we just own all that too? Honestly, if they launched some sort of limited Wanda Vision Plus subscription for, I don't know, a one-off three-dollar fee or something, if they gave you behind-the-scenes discussions with creators

Starting point is 00:05:40 or exclusive message boards, might you'd be interested? You probably would consider it, right? Anyway, maybe that's down the road for Disney because right now they're still focused on killing it, just getting people to sign up and watch. Disney had earnings yesterday and announced that they now have 94.9 million Disney Plus subscribers, quoting CNBC. Disney Plus exceeded the company's initial subscriber goal of 60 million to 90 million by 2024 back in November, forcing it to re-forecast. The company now expects Disney Plus will have 230 million to 260 million subscribers by 2024. Disney does not break out the number of subscribers that have signed up for the service individually versus those that have arrived at the service through bundles or one-time promotions,

Starting point is 00:06:27 end quote. More on that in a second. But counting Hulu, counting ESPN Plus, counting everything Disney does in streaming, they now have 146 million total streaming subscribers, which is second only to Netflix's 204 million subscribers. Disney Plus's total streaming revenue of $3.5 billion is about 50% of Netflix's total revenue. So in a year, Disney is halfway to Netflix. That is seriously impressive. It took nine years for Netflix to reach 95 million subscribers. it took Disney 14 months. Also, if people are questioning whether or not acquiring the assets of Fox were worth it for Disney, worth noting that of that Disney Plus total subscriber number, about 30 million of those are

Starting point is 00:07:16 Hot Star subscribers, which Disney basically acquired by acquiring Fox. Now, most of those are part of a free deal, but still not bad to have a huge customer acquisition spree, or at least customer introduction and potential onboarding, basically without having to lift a finger. And real quick to follow up on the thing that we didn't get to do yesterday. Yes, there was a first day pop. Shares of Bumble closed up 63.5% on its first day of trading, giving Bumble a valuation of $13 billion, quoting CNBC.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Bumble said in its S-1 filing that it generated $376.6 million of revenue in the the first nine months of 2020 with a net loss of $84.1 million. In that same time period in 2019, it brought in revenue of $362.6 million and reported a net profit of $68.6 million. The company's main competitor is Match Group, which owns Hinge, Tinder, and several other dating competitors, and has a market cap of $45.5 billion, end quote. Of course, though, match group has revenue of $2.39 billion, and is on track for annual profits in the $400 million range. So, yeah, basically investors are still thirsty for new tech offerings that they think still have growth ahead of them.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Since we're talking impressive numbers, consider how impressive these numbers are. According to an above Avalon estimate, Apple Watch reached 100 million users this past December. 30 million of those users came just last year in 2020. By Neal's estimate, 35% of all U.S. iPhone users also wear an Apple Watch. Quote, it took five and a half years for the Apple Watch installed base to surpass 100 million people. As shown in Exhibit 1, the installed base's growth trajectory has not been constant or steady over the years. Instead, the number of people entering the Apple Watch installed base continues to accelerate. The 30 million new people that began wearing an Apple Watch in 2020 nearly exceeded the number of

Starting point is 00:09:35 of new Apple Watch wearers in 2015, 2016, and 2017 combined. At 100 million users, the Apple Watch is Apple's fourth largest product installed base behind the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. At the current sales trajectory, the Apple Watch installed base will surpass the Mac installed base by 2022. Surpassing the iPad installed base will take longer and likely be measured in a number of years based on the current sales trajectory. While Apple Watch adoption figures point to a product gaining acceptance and appeal around the world. The same numbers also speak to the product's sales growth potential. There's nothing stopping Apple Watch from grabbing much higher adoption over time. Stronger adoption will serve as an Apple Watch sales growth engine for years. Running with a few simple calculations,

Starting point is 00:10:22 if 35% of iPhone users around the world one day wear an Apple Watch, the same adoption percentage found in the U.S., the Apple Watch installed base would exceed 350 million people. that's 2.5x larger than the current installed base, end quote. Time for the week on long-range suggestions. I said this week that I think we should consider doing an explainer bonus episode on this whole non-fungible tokens phenomenon. But I'm still learning about the space myself. So in the meantime, the first link in the long-reeds today is a placeholder for that, for you.

Starting point is 00:11:05 It's just a very simple explainer from DeCrypt about the basics of NFTs, how they work, and why people are suddenly so excited about them. Next, my tech history offering for you this week is about VLC, which turned 20 this month. So, from Protocol, a history of everyone's favorite media player, which started out with a bunch of students looking for a way to play Duke Nukem 3D, quote, The student staff running the campus network of the Ecole Central, Paris, had a problem. The university's token ring network had become much too slow for students living on campus. For years, the technology had done its job, offering access to email and newsgroups, but by the mid-90s, students wanted more. They wanted to download files, browse the web, and most of all play Duke Nukem 3D, which was impossible on the aging network architecture. However, the university wasn't able to provide a network update.

Starting point is 00:12:02 In desperate need for an outside sponsor, the students struck a deal with a big French broadcaster, which wanted to use the campus grounds as a test bed for an early version of IP-based TV delivery. The idea, instead of equipping each dorm room with its own satellite dish and set-top box, students would find a way to stream TV signals over their local network, end quote. And this is sort of a local news tech story. New York's vaccine websites basically sucked, and so a... few local software engineers built a better system from scratch, quoting the New York Times. Hughie Ma, a 31-year-old software engineer for Airbnb, was stunned when he tried to make a

Starting point is 00:12:43 coronavirus vaccine appointment for his mother in early January and saw that there were dozens of websites to check, each with its own sign-up protocol. The city and state appointment systems were completely distinct. There has to be a better way, he said. He remembered thinking, so he developed one. In less than two weeks, he launched TurboVax, a free website that compiles availability from the three main city and state New York vaccine systems and sends the information in real time to Twitter. It costs Mr. Ma less than $50 to build, yet it offers an easier way to spot appointments than the city and state's official systems do, end quote. Then, unlike with VR, I can't really test the waters on things like this myself, but I read

Starting point is 00:13:27 with eager interest, Motor Trends Review of Cadillac's new Super Cruise System. Motor trends take. Apparently it works as well as Tesla's autopilot, and they also figure it might be safer, too. Cadillac's Supercrues may not yet be able to match all of the functions of Tesla's autopilot, auto steer, and navigate on autopilot. But in areas, the two systems overlap, which is most of them, Supercruz performs at least as well as the autopilot suite and in some cases performs better. All the while, it does so more safely by tracking the human driver's attack. and preparing them as much as possible as early as possible to take back control of the vehicle. Tesla moved fast, broke things, and radically advanced the state-of-the-art, but Cadillac's more considered approach is the appropriate one for the vast majority of drivers,

Starting point is 00:14:16 and Super Cruise should be made available on as many Cadillac and other GM models as quickly as possible if systems like these are to make any measurable impact on road safety as Tesla has so often claimed autopilot does, end quote. I considered doing this one as its own segment this week, but here you go. Let's do it now. To keep you updated on that chip shortage that is hampering automobile production, among other things, according to Bloomberg, the problem is getting worse. Metastasizing into other areas like phones and gaming consoles, quote, the virus pandemic, social distancing, and factories and soaring competition from tablets, laptops, and electric cars are causing some of the toughest conditions for smartphone components.

Starting point is 00:15:02 its supply in many years, said Neil Mawston and analysts with strategy analytics. He estimates prices for key smartphone components, including chipsets and displays, have risen as much as 15% in the past three to six months, end quote. Next, does anyone know why it's always Walmart and not Amazon? That suddenly announces it has new inventory of PS5s and sends us all scrambling to try to get one. I tried the last time they became available for about a half an hour and missed out on every window that was available. I joked on Twitter after that that it's probably even money at this point, which I'll get first. A vaccine or a PlayStation 5. But what I did already get, because it's sitting in a box just waiting, is a spare dual sense controller.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And this is, you know, just a tiny design detail, but it's an interesting one, quoting from the verge piece that goes into death. depth on all of this, quote, the 40,000 tiny PlayStation symbols you'll feel when you pick up the PS5's new game pad. As an Easter egg for its fans, the company decided to apply a micro-texture to the dual sense controller's entire lower shell that makes it Sony's most grippable gamepad yet because of the thousands upon thousands of tiny squares, triangles, circles, and crosses literally at your fingertips, end quote. And finally, no, this is not tech. But yes, it is from The New Yorker. What can I tell you?

Starting point is 00:16:33 It's not because they're a sponsor. It's because this is literally the article that I have set aside to read from my paper issue of the New Yorker this weekend. In the early 1940s, decades before he was Stan the Man, the impresario of the Marvel universe, Stanley Martin Lieber, fetched coffee, took notes and sat on desks playing the piccolo, or perhaps the ocarina in the offices of his uncle's comic book. company. There, before and after his army service and into the decade that followed, Stanley became one of the many typists and scribblers providing copy for word balloons and prose for the book's filler pages. He was as efficient as his older colleagues at churning out scripts and already distinguished himself in one way. He put his pen name, Stan Lee, on all his work. He said that he was saving his birth name for a more respectable project like a novel. Still, if he was going to make

Starting point is 00:17:28 comics, he wanted credit. And that desire served him well. It also raised big questions about, to use two of Lee's favorite nouns, power and responsibility, since Lee never created a comic alone. Novelists have editors and publishers, live action films required directors and actors, and company-owned superhero comics are plotted, drawn, scripted, and lettered by different people with creative teams that change over time. To give a full account of Stan Lee, as Abram Reisman sets out to do in a new biography called True Believer, is to contend not just with his presence in popular culture, the smiling oldster and sunglasses with a cameo in each Marvel film, but with the fluid nature of artistic collaboration, and so with endless debates over which parts

Starting point is 00:18:15 of the comics are his. Why should we care? One answer is money. Lots of it. Nine of the 32 top grossing films in history use Marvel characters. Though Stan Lee gave up his stake in the intellectual property years before the Marvel cinematic universe began, money kept flowing his way. Another reason is honesty. Audiences believe that Lee created these characters, and his lifelong habit of taking credit has stoked fans and journalists wish to get at the truth, end quote. So, everybody, we've got another weekend bonus episode for you this weekend. Actually, we've got two, depending on which feed you're on. First, everyone is, is going to hear an interview with the great Bloomberg economics columnist Noah Smith.

Starting point is 00:19:11 We get into the dual and related questions of, is remote work really the future? And is Silicon Valley really over? Ride Home Plus subscribers, you'll see that in your feed a few hours after this episode is dropped. Everybody else, you'll see it on Saturday, as per usual with bonus episodes. But also, exclusively for you,

Starting point is 00:19:34 ride home plus subscribers. You will also get this weekend the second interesting raises episode. There are several big trends in startups right now. We mentioned creating products for the creator economy yesterday, but can I tell you that checkouts are red hot? Checkouts, not e-commerce, not payments, the actual tech and infrastructure of checking out. Also, real estate is hot after the pandemic and real estate tech is hot. And also there's lots of heat around. alternative ways to price insurance rates, to measure creditworthiness beyond credit scores, a whole bunch of stuff. FinTech is everything. All of that, and Europe's biggest unicorn has taken that particular title after a recent raise. And spoiler alert, it's in one of the

Starting point is 00:20:20 spaces I just mentioned. If you are not a right home plus subscriber, and that sort of analysis is interesting to you, you know what to do. Tech.comcast.com. Tech. Or if you look at the bottom of the show notes today, there is a link that will let you sign. up for Ride Home Plus right inside your podcast app. Also, I know that not everyone is on Clubhouse yet, and no, I can't give you invites because I'm all out. But we're maybe going to be making some moves on Clubhouse soon as well, now that it is opening up to the point that several million people are on there. If you are on Clubhouse right now, make sure to follow me. Just search for Brian McCullough on Clubhouse, because when we do it,

Starting point is 00:21:04 test of what we think we want to do going forward maybe as soon as this weekend or early next week and maybe even involving Noah Smith, who is a brilliant guy to talk economics with. I'm going to try to tweet about it, and I might even throw an announcement episode into the feed, but if you follow me on Clubhouse, you'll get those notifications that are so wonderful and basically nonstop. And I'll make sure members of the Mutant Podcast Army, whether your right home plus subscribers or not are called on stage to participate when and if we do all that. Anyway, that's all for now. Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 02/12 – Google Adds Pixel-Exclusive Photo Editing Features To Google Photos

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