Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 11/08 - Foldable Phones Are Officially A Thing

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Foldable phones are officially a thing, Tesla names a new board chair, Amazon’s mailing a physical toy catalog, Ford doesn’t want to miss out on scooters, and Comcast doesn’t want to miss out on home hubs. Stories from: @albertwenger, @dmac1, @meganrosedickey Tweets: @bryce Links: This is Samsung’s foldable smartphone (The Verge) Google says Android will natively support ‘foldables’ to limit fragmentation (The Verge) Amazon is mailing a printed holiday toy catalog to millions of customers (CNBC) Google Plans Large New York City Expansion (WSJ) The Anchor Tenant (Fred Wilson/AVC) Google's Gift to NYC (Albert Wenger) Ford buys electric scooter startup Spin (TechCrunch) Comcast is developing a video-streaming platform for broadband-only customers (CNBC) So I sent my mom that newfangled Facebook Portal (TechCrunch)   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 Tech Meme Ride Home for Thursday, November 8th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, foldable phones are officially a thing, I guess.

Tesla names a new board chair. Amazon's mailing a physical toy catalog. Ford doesn't want to miss out on scooters and Comcast doesn't want to miss out on home hubs. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Samsung's developers conference kicked off yesterday. And there were some notable announcements, of course. For example, Samsung debuted what it's called. calling one UI, a redesign for its Android skin that has a more minimal aesthetic that will roll out next year.

Also, Samsung says it will open its Bixby assistant to third-party developers through an SDK and rollout support for five new languages. But the thing that got all the headlines, as it was designed to do, was when Samsung teased a foldable phone that acts as a phone when closed and a tablet when opened. I say teased, and I really mean it. They dimmed the lights on stage so you could make out the device but not really, and said that what they showed off was a disguised version of the device so as to not give away the full design.

Click the first link in the show notes for the verge piece to see some pictures of the device on stage and an animated GIF. Samsung is calling this technology the Infinity Flex display. And yes, what we see is a device that when opened up looks like maybe an iPad mini-sized tablet. The screen is reportedly 7.3 inches. But when you close it up, the backside lights up, and it looks like your average smartphone. Quoting from the verge, up to three apps will be able to run simultaneously using something Samsung calls multi-active window. Samsung says it will be able to start mass production of the Infinity Flex display in a massive.

matter of months, according to Justin Denison, senior vice president of mobile product marketing. Samsung isn't saying exactly when we can expect to see more than just this concept device, end quote. So we have been hearing about foldable screen technology for a while now, and Google is officially supporting these new devices in Android. More on that in a second. So maybe 2019 really will be the year of the foldable screen. the foldable phone. Huawei is reportedly going to release a foldable handset next year. Lenovo and Jaume reportedly have their own prototypes.

Microsoft is rumored to be working on a pocketable surface device, and even LG is working on a flexible OLED display and TVs that they claim can roll up into a box, which is kind of fitting because Chris Mims' snarky take on Twitter was that folding phones are just to give. gimmick and will be the 3D TVs of the mobile world. In other words, devices that seem super cool in demos but have essentially zero utility in real-world use once the G-Wiz factor wears off.

Google has simultaneously been holding their Android developers conference, and again, there were some cool headlines for devs. Support for the latest release of the Kotlin language, which is increasingly popular in the Android developer ecosystem, was announced. announced a new in-app updates API to nudge users to update more quickly was announced and a bunch of other stuff. But as I said, Google also specifically outlined how they want Android developers to support this new foldables category using existing native APIs, quoting Dieter Bone at the verge. That's important because Google has been waging a never-ending battle against fragmentation on Android. And a new form factor is a potential inflection point.

As manufacturers race to create devices, they're going to need software that can support them. If Google weren't opinionated about how that software works, every manufacturer would come up with their own solution, and the ecosystem would get really messy, really fast. Director of Product Management, Sagar Comdar, says that Google is, quote, working closely with our OEM partners to ensure we have a common API surface for developers, end quote. As of right now, the official guidance from Google to developers and OEMs, is to use an existing feature called screen continuity,

the API that Android apps currently used to know when a screen size has changed, like when, say, the user rotates the device. Now that Elon Musk has to step down for a couple of years from Tesla's board of directors, Tesla has gone ahead and officially named a replacement, a new chairwoman of Tesla's board. She is Telestra, chief financial officer, Robin Denholm. Denholm has been a member of Tesla's board since 2014, but now by stepping up to the big chair, she is also officially leaving her position at Telestra to be Tesla's chairwoman full-time.

If you're not familiar with Telstra, it's Australia's largest telecommunications company. Previously, Denham has had positions at Juniper Networks, Sun Microsystems, and Toyota, so a full CV of both tech and auto experience. One interesting wrinkle to note, though, Denholm is giving Telestra six months notice before she officially leaves. Quoting from Tesla's press release about this, to ensure a smooth transition during the remainder of Robin's time at Telestra, Elon will be a resource to Robin and provide any support that she requests in her role as chair, end quote. To which user boss investor on Twitter said, quote, they named a new chair that can't really focus on it for six months.

Elon's perfect scenario, end quote. Amazon has begun mailing a physical toy catalog to customers ahead of the upcoming holiday gift giving season. But wait, physical catalog. Isn't Amazon all about ordering convenience? Would we have to call a 1-800 number? No, Amazon's got you covered. They've already thought of that, quoting CMBC. The 70-page catalog

comes with a distinct retro look evoking memories of old Toys R Us catalogs that made the now-defunct toy retailer so successful. Some of the featured toys come with a QR code allowing readers to instantly scan and shop for more products. Readers can also scan the product images in the catalog with their Amazon app

to get more information and add them to their shopping cart, end quote. As pretty much everyone is saying in response to this news, yes, this is just another instance of Amazon taking over physical retail, Borg-like, by swooping in over the carcasses of defunct physical retail players and just doing what they did. You know, physical bookstores, physical convenience stores, whole foods, grocery stores. Now a Toys R Us catalog. Maybe a Sears catalog next.

Well, if New York City does get that big new Amazon office, it looks like it won't be alone. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is planning an expansion of. of its New York City presence. Currently, there are around 7,000 employees in Google's current building in Chelsea, and now apparently Google wants to put an additional 12,000-plus employees in a new West Village location. Quote, the Alphabet Incorporated Unit is nearing a deal

to buy or lease a planned 1.3 million square foot office building at St. John's Terminal in the city's West Village neighborhood, said people familiar with the district. discussions. The building planned to be completed by 2022 would give Google space for more than 8,500 staff based on the industry standard of 150 square feet per employee. In addition, Google plans to expand its existing property at Chelsea Market by about 300,000 square feet, according to people briefed on those plans, taken with announced plans for 250,000 square feet of office space at Pier 57. That is enough space for more than 3,500 workers.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on any talks about the St. John's terminal property. She said Google plans to expand Pier 57 to include a community space, winter garden, and water taxi landing open to the public. The company announced in March it bought the Manhattan Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion, but agreed to keep leasing space in the building to food and retail tenants, end quote. So again, some on the ground insight into the logistics of this. Right on the water in the West Village puts them with. within easy access of the West Side Highway, just north of the Holland Tunnel, right on the water. So as they mentioned, you could have ferry access to Jersey City, Hoboken, etc. And it's just south of the Path Train station at Christopher Street,

so that would allow for easy commutes from all over New Jersey. I want to note this line from the journal piece, though, quote, Google said it has not applied for subsidies or tax incentives for any of its properties in New York. So that's refreshing. And as a longstanding member of the New York City tech community, I can wholeheartedly second this opinion. On Twitter, venture capitalist Bryce Roberts said, quote, can't overstate the impact Google's original office had

on seeding the last wave of New York City founders and startups, end quote. In fact, Fred Wilson wrote about this today in his blog, and his Union Square partner, Albert Wenger, wrote about this as well 10 years ago, saying that the big Google office in NYC seated our local ecosystem with, quote, a whole new group of angel investors in New York, many of whom have an engineering background, end quote.

He called it the gift that keeps on giving. Both posts, of course, are in the show notes. A couple of interesting moves here that I did not see coming. Ford has apparently acquired electric scooter startup spin, and, quote, the total consideration in the deal was close to $100 million, end quote, though other sources are pinning the deal at $40 million. Now, I did not know this, but Ford had previously launched a limited scooter service

it called Jelly on the campus of Purdue University, which just so happens to be Spin CEO Derek Coe's alma mater. Spin currently operates scooters on five college campuses in total and operates scooters in Coral Gables, Florida, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina, Lexington, Kentucky, Denver, Colorado, Detroit, Michigan, and Long Beach, California. Along with Bird and Lime, Spin was one of the first scooter companies to put scooters on the streets of San Francisco before that city cracked down.

Ford, for its part, purchased commuter shuttle service chariot two years ago, so their interest in alternate modes of transportation isn't new. But as Megan Rose Diggy puts it in TechCrunch, quote, it's not completely clear why Ford feels the need to acquire Spin, let alone any electric scooter company, instead of just forming partnerships with scooter manufacturers to launch its own service, end quote. And sources are telling CNBC that Comcast aims to ship a home hub with a voice-enabled remote next year for its broadband-only subscribers.

The idea is that the hub would aggregate streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and the like. Quoting from CNBC, the product, which will first be a set-top box and is meant to be an operating. platform similar to X1 will launch next year, said the people, who asked not to be named because the internal discussions are private. Comcast hasn't decided how much it will charge per month for the device, said the people. And Comcast declined to comment on the plans. Comcast currently gives its video customers access to its X1 platform, which aggregates cable TV with many of the same apps that will be available on the new product, such as Netflix and YouTube, said the people. The new product won't have cable TV, although, it will give customers the option to rent shows and movies and upgrade to a Comcast video package,

the people said, end quote. So thinking about it, I guess this isn't that surprising. It gives Comcast a route to still have some sort of a video relationship with customers who use its broadband internet offerings, but ignore the cable offerings. And in theory, this would give them a path to taking a cut for any screaming subscription packages it got people to sign up for on the device, right? but also the CNBC report says that Comcast wants the hub to be connected to your smart home devices as well. So you could also look at this as a play in the smart assistant slash Alexa slash smart speaker space as well, which makes sense because why would Comcast sit that scrum out? And I mean, for how many years have we heard about how tech companies want to own the living room?

And they were going to do that through the TV, web TV, anyone? everything old is new again. Finally, today, Facebook's portal and portal plus video chat devices went on sale today, and so the reviews are out as well. But I sort of decided to sit the reviews out since we've done so many review roundups lately, and also because I still have the sense that this portal thing is dead on arrival. But there is a nagging doubt about that in the back of my mind. The final link in the show notes is for Josh Constine's review of the portal

and TechCrunch titled, So I Sent My Mom That Newfangled Facebook Portal. His mom loved it, unabashedly, apparently. And this is Constine's concluding graph, quote, Convincing jaded younger adults to buy a portal might be a steep challenge for Facebook, but perhaps Facebook understands that. Rather than being seemingly ignorant of or calloused about the privacy climate its launching portal into, the company may be purposefully conceding the tech newswarks,

that includes those who will be. reviewing portal but not necessarily the much larger mainstream audience. If it concentrates on seniors and families with young children who might not have the same fears of Facebook, it may have found a way to actually bring us closer together in the way its social network is supposed to, end quote. And that's the thing that's nagging me in the back of my mind about this device. For all the snark, I mean, it really is a hardware device that makes so much sense for Facebook. It's their sharing mission at its most pure form. If Facebook had had the foresight to come out with a device like this five years ago, I think every home would have one at this point, and maybe

we wouldn't even be talking about Alexa. Shame about the privacy scandals and bad PR. But maybe, just maybe, like everything else Facebook does, maybe they know we want this, even if we swear up and down we don't. That's all for today. As always, I've been your host, Brian McCullough. I wrote and produced the show every day. You can follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC, and you can buy my book. It's called How the Internet Happened. I get my story ideas every day from the Techmeme editors. You can follow their work at Techmeme.com, of course. And if you follow at TechMeme on Twitter, you can get all the headlines they post in real time. Talk to you tomorrow.