Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 07/29 - Google Leaks, So We Don't Have To

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Google continues to leak Pixel 4 details itself, Github bans users from specific countries, will we eventually see a TikTok phone? Consolidation in the food delivery space, and all hail our first official Fortnite World Cup Champion. Sponsors: WeWorkRemotely Lightstream.com/ride Links: (Don’t) hold the phone: new features coming to Pixel 4 (The KeyWord) GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea (TechCrunch) Amazon Wants to Rule the Grocery Aisles, and Not Just at Whole Foods (NYTimes) China's ByteDance, after Smartisan deal, says developing smartphone (Reuters) TikTok owner ByteDance confirms plans to produce a smartphone (The Verge) Europe's top court sharpens guidance for sites using leaky social plug-ins (TechCrunch) Just Eat £9bn merger plan sends shares soaring (The Guardian) Sony is crowdfunding a wearable 'air conditioner' (updated) (Engadget) Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf, 16, wins Fortnite World Cup singles and $3 million (ESPN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 right home for Monday, July 29th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. Google continues to leak Pixel 4 details itself. GitHub banned users from specific countries. Will we eventually see a TikTok phone? Consolidation in the food delivery space as expected and all hail our first official Fortnite World Cup champion. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. So Google has been pursuing a sort of unique PR strategy with the upcoming. pixel 4 smartphone. Instead of letting blogs and rumor sites float all of the rumors and leaked photos,

Google is just doing all the leaking themselves. They confirmed the existence of the pixel 4 back in June, even releasing an official design render. But of course, the rumor mill has continued discussing all sorts of things like the sizable chin on the device and questioned why that was needed, why so much real estate, what sort of sensors might Google be packing in there? And why? Well, again today, Google just up and told us why. The Pixel 4 will come with face unlocking instead of fingerprint unlocking, and as people suspected, it will also have radar-powered motion sense features that will let you do things like skip songs, snooze alarms,

and more things over time just by making gestures, basically waving your hand over the device or something like that. I'll let Google explain it to you, quote, For the past five years, our advanced technology and projects team, ATAP, has been working on Sully, a motion sensing radar. Radar, of course, is the same technology that has been used for decades to detect planes and other large objects. We've developed a miniature version located at the top of Pixel 4 that senses small motions around the phone, combining unique software algorithms with the advanced hardware sensor so it can recognize gestures and detect when you're nearby. Pixel 4 will be the first device with Sully, powering our new motion.

Motion Sense features to allow you to skip songs, snooze alarms, and silence phone calls just by waving your hand. These capabilities are just the start, and just as pixels get better over time, motion sense will evolve as well. Motion Sense will be available in select pixel countries, end quote. Click through for actual video and even pictures outlining the array of eight sensors and cameras in the prominent chin that make all of this possible. Weird sort of story here. GitHub has officially confirmed that it is, blocking developers in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Crimea from accessing private repositories and paid accounts on GitHub due to U.S. and international sanctions, which is

sort of weird because sanctions are about doing business with business entities and business people in sanctioned countries, right? Does being a software developer that just so happens to live in one of those countries constitute someone doing business. business? I guess so. Over the weekend, GitHub's CEO, Nat Friedman tweeted, quote, GitHub is subject to U.S. trade law just like any company that does business in the U.S., end quote. Quoting TechCrunch. Several developers began to complain about their inability to access some of GitHub's services last week. News outlet ZDNet reported about a Russian developer living in Crimea, whose GitHub account had been restricted, for instance. Hamad Saeed Fard, a developer who is based

in Iran, wrote a viral medium post that his GitHub account was blocked without any prior notice or the option to back up his data. Interestingly, the restrictions are imposed based on a user's location by tracking their IP address and payment history. Instead of validating their nationality and ethnicity, GitHub said on its website where it mentions that Cuba and North Korea are also facing the U.S. sanctions. For those who are considering a workaround by using VPNs, GitHub has ruled out that possibility. People in U.S. sanctioned countries, quote, are prohibited from using IP proxies, VPNs, or other methods to disguise their location when accessing GitHub.com services, end quote. It remains to be seen how GitHub enforces the rule, end quote.

Sources are telling the New York Times that Whole Foods is not enough. Amazon is apparently exploring an ambitious new grocery chain that it might launch wholly separate from Whole Foods itself, but one that is built for pickup and delivery, as well as in-store shopping. It's common practice at Amazon when you're floating a new idea internally to write up a mock press release, sort of describing or imagining the project after it has come to fruition. Indeed, one such memo has been circulating for a couple years now at Amazon entitled, Grocery Shopping for Everyone. The new stores the document envisioned would have robust sections for produce,

fresh food and prepared meals. Non-perishable products like paper towels or canned beans would be stored on a separate floor away from customers. Shoppers could order those items with an app, and while they shopped for fresh food, the other products would be brought down in time for checkout. There would also be an area to pick up groceries ordered online and to manage packages for delivery drivers, end quote. So that seems to be the vision Amazon is thinking about, according to the 15 people that the Times spoke to. The Whole Foods acquisition was always thought of as the beginning, not the end of Amazon's ambition and groceries, according to these folks.

The Whole Foods acquisition hasn't quite been a roaring success yet. Not exactly. Quote, Whole Foods was broken. We shouldn't forget that, which is why they could buy it, says Phil Lempert in the piece. Phil is a food marketing analyst. But as Paul Rubilo tweeted, that doesn't mean Amazon. hasn't learned a lot so far. Quote, the Whole Foods data was the gold for Amazon.

It's always about the data, end quote. And quoting again from the Times piece. Rather than dramatically, substantially expanding Whole Foods, several former employees said, Amazon is considering designing stores specifically with pickup and delivery in mind and with a smaller area dedicated to fresh shopping, as the old memo imagined. While it is unclear what hybrid design Amazon has in the works, a recent job posting for a store designer on, quote, an exciting new team was looking for someone interested in, quote, creating multiple customer experiences under one roof, end quote. And Amazon has been looking

for spaces close to Whole Foods locations, indicating a hub and spoke approach where one store serves as the warehouse and commissary for others. Experts say it could take more than a decade to build a new chain from the ground up, end quote. Bite Dance has confirmed that it is working on its own smartphone after acquiring some patents and employees. from Chinese smartphone maker smartisan earlier this year. BiteDance, you might recall, is the company behind TikTok, that wildly popular new social app. And with this news, ByteDance seems to be following in the illustrious footsteps of others who have created a popular software platform and thus can't resist the urge to create hardware to run it on.

Facebook, of course, had the abortive Facebook phone. Snap still tries to hawk those glasses, and even Amazon tries to try to. its hand with the firephone. Indeed, quoting Reuters, the plans come as the tech firm expands into new sectors beyond video and news apps. In a statement, a BightDance spokeswoman said a smartphone had been part of Smartisan's development plans before the deal it made with BiteDance. The product was a continuation of earlier Smartisan plans aiming to satisfy the needs of the old Smartisan user base, the spokeswoman added, end quote. Now, I had never heard of Smartisan, but apparently they are a niche player in the Chinese smartphone.

sector, so this seems like an easy way for ByteDance to experiment. And who knows, maybe those Asia Super Apps can play this game in a new way, quoting the Verge. It's not exactly surprising that ByteDance is considering entering another product category, especially since it has already expanded into messaging and is reportedly thinking about launching a music streaming service. Previous reports suggested that both of these apps would come pre-installed on ByteDance's phone alongside TikTok, the app behind the company's explosive. of growth, end quote. But you know, again, don't whisper firephone while strolling past the graveyard because if smartphones are a thing that can bring even Jeff Bezos low, seriously, good luck

to you. The European Union's top court has just ruled that sites with embedded Facebook like buttons are responsible for data collected by those buttons and thus must obtain user consent before any data is sent back to Facebook. So I guess get ready for more pop-up consent forms on European websites because, you know, the amount of sites that would have Facebook like buttons on them would be checks notes, basically all of them, right? Quoting TechCrunch. The ruling is significant because, as currently seems to be the case,

Facebook's like buttons transfer personal data automatically when a web page loads without the user even needing to interact with the plugin, which means if websites are relying on visitors consenting to their data being shared with Facebook, they will likely need to change how the plugin functions to ensure no data is sent to Facebook prior to visitors being asked if they want their browsing to be tracked by the ad tech giant. The background to the case is a complaint against online clothes retailer fashion ID by a German consumer protection association. Boy, this is a German word I'm never going to be able to

get verb of was verb of something NRW, which took legal action in 2015 seeking an injunction against fashion ID's use of the plugin, which it claimed breached European data protection law, end quote. Now the question here will be, will Facebook make some sort of code change on its end so that these plugins can behave differently, or will the onus be on the webmasters? Part of the legal argument here centers around the tracking of even non-Facebook users, Because of these plugins, you know, there's one useful yardstick for how powerful certain platforms are. Imagine if a court came down with an injunction that said all websites that had like buttons would need to go dark until they were removed. You'd basically be turning the entire web off overnight.

Big news from the food delivery space where experts in the space have been anticipating consolidation for some time now. UK-based JustEat is merging with its Dutch rival Takeaway.com in a 9 billion-pound deal that will create one of the world's biggest online food delivery companies again overnight. Shares of JustEat soared 30% on the stock market on the news in anticipation of that consolidation that I'm speaking of. In other words, stock traders expect that some other bidder will likely step in to maybe try to get a piece of this deal before it closes. thus a bidding war, quoting the Guardian.

There have been a flurry of deals in the fast-growing online food delivery market with competition heating up from Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Just Eat bought the UK firm Hungry House in January 2018 and in December Takeaway.com acquired Delivery Heroes Food Delivery Business in Germany. Analyst at Jeffries thought the most likely counter-bitter would come from outside the industry such as Japan's soft bank, Amazon or private equity, a bid for. from Uber Eats or Deliveroo would raise competition issues, and this could affect Amazon. After it became the lead investor in a $757 million financing round in Deliveroo in May,

Amazon was ordered by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to halt any integration efforts pending an investigation into potential breaches of competition rules. Combined, Just Eat and Takeaway.com had 360 million orders worth $7.3 billion in 2018, and strong positions in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada, end quote. From the Take My Money Department, Take My Money Now, Sony is crowdfunding what is apparently a wearable air conditioner, kind of. Actually, it would be a shirt that could keep you cool or keep you warm, depending on your needs, because you'd be able to control your temperature using a smartphone app. How would this work?

Well, first of all, first flight is a program Sony has to try to raise funds for a new product idea, or several different new product ideas, and if enough interest and pre-orders are there, it brings the product to market. And part of this program is the Rion Pocket, which is a sort of wearable air conditioner kind of sort of, coding and gadget. The stealthy device doesn't condition the air as such. Rather, it sits at the base of your neck and uses the Peltier effect, where he, Heat is absorbed or admitted when you pass an electrical current across the junction to either lower your temperature by 23 degrees Fahrenheit or raise it by 14 degrees Fahrenheit all without bulk or noise.

You could wear a stuffy business outfit on a hot day and avoid looking like you've just stepped into a sauna. You have to manually control the temperature through a mobile app, but Sony hopes to deliver an automatic mode through a feature update. And no, you don't have to worry about charging it midday. Sony expects a full 24 hours out of a single charge and two hours of charge. and two hours of charging through USBC should be enough to help you brave on forgiving conditions. Availability, as you might have surmised, is the real gotcha. The Rion Pocket was close to being fully funded as we wrote this, but it's only expected to ship in March 2020, and this is only for Japan, end quote. Now for The Downer.

In an update to their story, and Gadget has discovered that the actual battery life is less than two hours. That's the battery life for the cooling heating function. The so-called 24-hour battery life described in the original. story was just for the Bluetooth connection. Still, if you could confirm for me that I could throw this shirt underneath a sports coat or something like that and commute on a subway into the city for an hour or two and arrive at a meeting not covered in sweat, I still say this is technology worth pursuing. Speaking of going into the city, I actually saw ads for this in Manhattan last week, but the Fortnite World Cup was held in Arthur Ash Stadium in Queens last week, the same venue

as the U.S. Open for tennis, and American pro player Kyle Buga Gistorf, all of 16 years old, won the Fortnite World Cup singles tournament becoming the first Fortnite World Cup solo champion. The winning prize, $3 million, quoting ESPN. Bugga defeated the likes of popular fan favorites Turner Tfu Tenney and Timothy Bizzle Miller, as well as other young talented players including Cody Clicks, Conrod, and Danny Dubs Walsh. I don't know why everybody needs to have some sort of a middle nickname. Buga was the first player to qualify for the World Cup finals in the North America East region in April and showed his dominance throughout the six-game series.

emotionally right now I don't feel too much except I know that this could pretty much change my life forever, Buga said. It's just absolutely unreal, end quote. Buga's game plan revolved around picking fights and being aggressive, even at times when they were potentially disadvantageous and racking up eliminations in every game. That same play style didn't fare well for other players in the duo's tournament on Saturday, but for Buga, it netted a substantial amount of points and led him to victory, end quote. apparently this tournament was run like any other tournament, like a poker tournament or a golf tournament or tennis tournament. The prize money was tiered. So everyone who placed 24th or better took home a minimum of $50,000. 10th place earned $225,000 and second place still took home $1.8 million. Here's an interesting data point.

Tiger Woods's winnings from the Masters this year, $2.07 million. Novak Djokovic's at Wimbled. 2.95 million. So, this would be more. Also, 40 million people played in the last 10 weeks of qualifiers for this tournament. Buga's mother said that when her son qualified for the finals, that was the moment that she finally conceded to herself that there just might be something to this professional gamer thing. Quote, I literally feel like I'm in a dream right now, his mother echoed. It's so surreal. This is life-changing for him. He's been playing video games since he was three, so this is his passion. He told us he could do this. He put his mind to it,

and he did it, end quote. Mutant Podcast Army Assemble. I missed it because I was on vacation last week, but Marco released a new version of the Overcast podcast app, and this new version has a new podcast recommendation system. The old system used to be based on tweets, but now it's just based on the star system inside of Overcast. If you'll recall, a year ago or so, I asked you all to star us on Overcast, and because of that, we were in the top recommendations of Overcast for many months. So could I get you to juice the system once again? If you're listening to this right now in Overcast, open the app up and star this episode. It's right there at the bottom if you're playing this live. And don't stop there. Go into the back catalog

and star a bunch of past episodes, too. Go hog on it. It'll help other listeners find the show thanks in advance and talk to you tomorrow.