Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 08/14 – An Apple Watch X?

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Apple is planning a huge revamp for the Apple Watch in honor of it’s 10th birthday. Amazon is using generative AI to summarize product reviews. It’s finally official. Paying for all the big streaming services is now more expensive than just paying for cable. And if that self driving car is rocking, maybe don’t go a-knocking. Sponsors: Hillsdale.edu/ride Links: Apple Plans Major ‘Watch X’ Overhaul for Device’s 10-Year Anniversary (Bloomberg) Amazon taps generative AI to enhance product reviews (TechCrunch) Google-backed Anthropic raises $100 mln from South Korea's SK Telecom (Reuters) Hollywood calls time on golden era of cheap streaming (FT) Could a True Streaming Bundle Be Upon Us? (Vulture) San Franciscans Are Having Sex in Robotaxis, and Nobody Is Talking About It (The San Francisco Standard) 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, August 14th, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apple is planning a huge revamp for the Apple Watch in honor of its 10th birthday. Amazon is using generative AI to summarize product reviews. It's finally official paying for all the big streaming services is now more expensive than just paying for cable. And if that self-driving car is a rockin, maybe don't go a knocking. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Mark German, Apple Scoop Monday. Did you know the Apple Watch is. coming up on its 10th birthday. It's kind of hard to believe, but it's true. And apparently, Apple is readying major changes for a so-called watch 10 device to honor the anniversary.

Quoting Mark, Apple is planning a splashy upgrade for its smartwatch, but you won't see it this year. The 2023 models due next month will be a minor refresh, the kind of incremental update that has characterized the product in recent years. Inside Apple, though, executives have pondered the idea of switching away from the slow but steady annual upgrade cycle. The deliberations haven't gotten far. Apple has dutifully released a new watch every year since the category debuted in 2015. But recent updates to the device underscore why this is even a discussion. Fact is Apple isn't giving consumers many reasons to buy a new watch with each generation. The company did launch an impressive new Apple Watch Ultra last year that spurred upgrades at the high end,

but 2023 will once again be another low-key year. Apple is set to unveil the Apple. Is set to unveil the Apple Watch Series 9 lineup alongside the latest iPhone at an event that's currently scheduled for September 12th. Because of the Apple Watch's slow evolution over the years, the design has remained largely the same since the Series 4 launched in 2018, aside from the Ultra Model. But that's poised to change. Apple is planning a Watch 10 model to mark the device's 10-year anniversary, and it promises to be the biggest overhaul yet. With the 10 model, Apple designers are working on a thinner watch case and have explored changing the way bands are attached to the device. Starting with the original Apple Watch, bands have slid into the sides of the chassis

and attached with a locking mechanism. Keeping that design the same, let the bands stay compatible with old and new models, but it has downsides. People involved in the development of new Apple Watches say the system takes up a considerable amount of space that could be better filled with a bigger battery or other components. To that end, the company has explored a new magnetic band attachment system, though it's unclear if it'll be ready or used in the Watch 10 revamp. Even bigger changes are coming as well, a micro-LED display that tops the color and clarity of the current OLED screens, as well as a technology for monitoring blood pressure, end quote. In this newsletter, Mark then goes on to outline the roadmap for the rollout of M3 chips and Max. Since we've talked about that recently,

I'll skip it for now, but click through to read if that interests you. Amazon has rolled out generative AI summaries of product reviews to a subset of U.S. mobile users across a broad range of products after testing this earlier this year, quoting TechCrunch. The retailer says it will use the new technology to provide a short paragraph of text right on the product detail page that will highlight the product features and customer sentiment mentioned across the customer reviews. This blurb of text could be used to get an overall sense of the common themes across. the reviews more easily, Amazon noted. In addition to the summary text, Amazon will also highlight key product attributes as clickable buttons. For example, if a customer wanted to know about the

product's ease of use or performance, they could tap a button to see just those reviews that mentioned those terms. Amazon had already offered a similar feature by surfacing frequently used words found in the reviews, which were also available as clickable buttons. Of course, the AI summaries will only be as good as the data they ingest. And Amazon has struggled for years. with fake and misleading product reviews, including paid reviews. In 2021, the company admitted it had blocked 200 million fake reviews the year prior, for example. It has also tried to crack down on the sources of fake reviews for years via lawsuits and other actions, including suing sellers who bought fake reviews. Last year, it also sued the admins from 10,000 Facebook groups who were engaged in fake review

brokering. More recently, the FTC got involved forcing a supplement maker to pay $600,000 in a case involving hijacked Amazon reviews, a situation where products are combined into a single listing to boost the reviews of one product with the good reviews of another. With the growing capabilities of AI, though, fake reviews may now be even tougher to spot as the technology advances to sound more human, which could lead to another explosion of fake reviews. That would make Amazon's AI-powered summaries of reviews less helpful if the company doesn't have other means of keeping AI written reviews off its site. Amazon addresses this concern around fake reviews today, saying it will only summarize those reviews from verified purchases. Plus,

it continues to invest significant resources, their words, to proactively stop fake reviews, end quote. Quick note of another big AI raise. Anthropic has raised $100 million from South Korea-based SK Telecom, which also invested in Anthropic during its most recent raise back just in May, as the two aim to build a teleco-focused multilingual LLM, quoting Reuters. Anthropic, a startup competing with OpenAI and building AI Foundation models, is among the most well-funded AI firms, having raised $450 million from investors, including Alphabet's Google and Spark Capital in May. SK. Telecom, which also made a smaller investment in May, said on Sunday

that the two companies planned to jointly develop a global telecommunications-oriented multilingual large-language model, and build an AI platform. S.K. Telecom declined to reveal the size of its may investment or the size of its stake in Anthropic. Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI executives in 2021. Its clod models are seen as major competitors to Open AIs GPT4. In July, SK. Telecom agreed with Deutsche Telecom and Singapore Telecommunications to form an alliance to jointly develop telecommunications-driven AI businesses, end quote. All right, it's been a running joke on this show for years that we're blowing up the cable bundle only to reconstitute it? Well, it's happened. With actual math, I can confirm that it's happened. And the recent price raises from the major streaming services have probably made this

happen, quoting the Financial Times. A basket of the top U.S. streaming services will cost $87 a month this autumn, compared with $73 a month a year ago, as Disney Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery and others have raised their prices in response to pressure from Wall Street to end the the prolificacy of the streaming boom. The average cable TV package costs $83 a month. Americans had, in recent years, enjoyed the benefits of an extravagant era in Hollywood, during which media companies inundated audiences with more programming than ever at a fraction of the cost of traditional television. Enticed by low prices, consumers rapidly cut the cable cord in favor of streaming services, with Disney Plus attracting more than 100 million subscribers

and only 16 months with a $6.99 per month subscription. After watching their stock valuations more than have, though, Warner Brothers and Disney have shifted towards austerity, laying off thousands of staff and raising their subscription prices to curb billion-dollar streaming losses. Even Netflix ditched its basic $9.99 advertisement-free monthly subscription earlier this year, with new customers paying $1549 per month. From a business point of view, streaming was going to have to move in this way. the price point was going to have to go up, said David Rogers, a Columbia Business School professor and author of the Digital Transformation Roadmap. This was accelerated by the fact that we no longer have cheap debt to flood the market with streaming content. Does cutting back on content and raising

prices work? said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at Lightshed Partners. Can you raise prices another 30% plus? Reduce content spending and continue to grow subscriptions or maintain subscriptions, end quote. Roger said there were ways to encourage subscribers to keep paying, quote, at a certain point you've got to watch out for people unsubscribing, he said, but streamers also have mechanisms for that. They can give a discount if you buy for a year rather than pay month to month, end quote. So we've reached an historical inflection point. Streaming is no longer cheaper than paying for cable,

at least if you want to watch everything instead of picking and choosing. But that was the point of the cable bundle in the first place, right? You got basically everything all in one place for one price. And funny enough, some folks are thinking, you know what would be good, quoting Vulture. A buzz about bundling has been steadily growing in TV industry circles since May when Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zazlov took a break from his usual mustache twirling to lay out a case for why companies with streaming platforms needed to get on the ball and figure out a way to package their respective services together in one consumer-friendly package, a K.A. A. Bundal. For me, it seems very clear that if we were to package

this great product that we have with others, it would be great for consumers. Zazlov said during an appearance at an industry conference, but more importantly, from a corporate point of view, a bundle, quote, would probably reduce churn, the CEO said, and could make it possible to spend less on promotion and customer acquisition, since all parties in the bundle would, quote, be marketing one product, end quote. Reducing churn, how many people cancel a service every month, has taken on increasing importance as price hikes have rolled out across streaming, including the big ones announced Wednesday by Disney Plus and Hulu. And this week, the number of prominent media execs singing a chorus of I Want My Bundle back

doubled when Paramount Global CEO Bob Backish seemed to join Zazlov in affirming his support for the idea during an earnings call with investors. We've been believers in bundling for a long time, he said, in response to a question from an analyst. Bundling has been one of the tried and true methods of value creation in media, and certainly as we enter the streaming space, bundling is part of our strategy, end quote. To be sure, Backish's praise of bundles was in the broadest possible sense and included shoutouts to ideas a few steps removed from the old cable bundle, such as his companies making a deal with Walmart to give Walmart Plus customers free access to Paramount Plus.

But he also pointed to agreements Paramount Global has struck outside of the United States, specifically partnerships with European satellite giants, Sky and Canal Plus, as examples of hard bundles that might work one day in the States. We are continuing to look at incremental opportunities in this regard, and the only thing we know for sure is it will be a growing part of what we're doing, Backich said. We like bundling. But liking and believing in bundling are not the same as actually going all in on the idea. While Disney has had success packaging together streaming services it owns, Disney Plus, Hulu ESPN Plus into the Disney bundle, it hasn't shown any inclination to let its platforms be connected with third-party streamers.

And while there are signs, attitudes are softening, more on that later, that's largely been true of the other six big American streamers, Netflix, Max, Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus, and Peacock. An industry insider I spoke to this week believes the holdup is understandable given the risks involved. You're making serious tradeoffs if you do this, he said. In his conference appearance earlier the summer, Zazlov suggested some of the tech giants might already be mulling the idea of creating their own bundles. If we don't do it ourselves, I think it'll be done to us, he said. It will be Amazon that does it. It will be Apple that does it. It will be Roku that does it.

They're already starting to do it, end quote. Indeed, we are seeing more bundles pop up with smaller streaming services. AMC networks, for example, has been a big believer in the concept for some time now. Since last April, it's been part of a package pushed by Amazon Prime video channels, bundling AMC Plus with stars at a discounted rate. The plan works by giving anyone who signs up for either service the opportunity to add the other at a lower price point, effectively creating a discounted bundle. In a May earnings call, AMC Network CEO Kristen Dolan said her company's longstanding distribution relationships, namely decades of working with cable companies, will help it during what she believes will be, quote, the forthcoming shift to

streaming bundles. These bundles are beginning to gain traction as the marketplace evolves and consumers seek a more simplified and integrated experience when it comes to managing their various services, end quote. Other medium-sized players seem equally keen on bundling. In addition to the mashup with AMC Plus, Lionsgate-owned Stars is part of another bundle pairing its service with Amazon-owned MGM Plus at a 20% discount. That offer is available on channel stores run by Amazon Prime Video, YouTube TV, and the Roku channel. Despite all the signs that streaming's future will involve more bundles, we might still be a few years away from anything close to what the cable ecosystem offered. One platform, one price.

As noted earlier, several big streamers remain staunchly opposed to sharing the same user interface as rivals, and it's hard to see that changing soon. And as much as platforms want to reduce churn and, if possible, increase overall subscriber counts, they also want to be careful to not end up selling their product too cheaply. If you take in less than $2 per user but net 20 million consistent subscribers, a bundle makes perfect sense. But if most of your users switch to a cheaper bundle deal and you only net a few million more customers, quote,

Do you end up limiting your upside and how much you make overall? Our streaming industry insider wonders, end quote. Finally today, I've heard of the Mile High Club, but the Mile something club. The San Francisco Standard has a look at how some Waymo and cruise passengers are, according to them, shall we say, testing the limits of what you can do in a cab that has no human driver in it. Things like having sex. Quote, by his estimates, Alex has performed at least six separate sex acts in robotaxies, ranging from impromptu makeout

sessions to, quote, full-on sex, no boundaries, activities, a total of three times in a cruise car. I mean, there's no one to tell you you can't do that, he said, laughing. It gets to the point where you're more and more and more comfortable, and if you're with someone like a more serious partner, it can escalate to other activities. The standard has spoken to four separate cruise car riders who said they've had sex or hooked up in the driverless vehicles in San Francisco over recent months and have provided ride receipts. This standard was unable to find a source who said they'd had sex in a waymo. Turns out these rumblings of covert robocar hookups might have some basis in science.

A little-known 2018 study predicted that more autonomous vehicles would mean more sex on the road and potentially other unseemly behaviors you likely wouldn't want your Uber driver to bear witness to. The rules and regulations surrounding robotaxies are murky, largely because the industry is so new. How much can you get away with in an autonomous vehicle if they're effectively window-covered hotel rooms on wheels full of cameras that never stop recording? It was really funny because the crews got quite hot and fogged up to the point that the windshield was completely fogged over in any other context, in any other vehicle. That would have been an actual problem, Alex said. Unfortunately, for the debauchess among us, the robot taxi companies currently use

pretty extensive camera surveillance inside and outside of their cars. We record video inside of the car for added safety and support cruise states on its website. If something happened during your ride, we might review the recording to better understand what happened. We only record audio during active support calls, end quote. The company also told the standard that it is in the quote, early stages of developing new sensor features in its origin cars, the larger bus-like vehicles that can detect trash or items left behind. A Waymo spokesperson said its team might review recordings if there are concerns about cleanliness, safety, crashes, or missing items, end quote. We were promised self-driving cars, and instead we got whatever this is. But hey,

it was only a matter of time, right? Just another manic Monday. Talk to you tomorrow.