Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 04/21 – Sonos Radio

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Sonos launches its own streaming radio service, huge trove of Facebook accounts purchased on the dark web, Google goes with free to compete with Amazon in product search, Kickstarter is seeing a huge drop in project launches and we finally have a date for the HBO Max launch. Sponsors: TinyCapital.com Rhone.com/ridehome promocode ridehome for 20% off Links: Sonos launches its own streaming radio service (The Verge) 267 million Facebook profiles sold for $600 on the dark web (BleepingComputer) Apple launches App Store, Music, Arcade, Podcasts, and iCloud in new countries (9to5Mac) In major shift, Google Shopping opens up to free product listings (Search Engine Land) Facebook removes some events calling for protests of stay-at-home orders (NBC News) Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns (Wired) WarnerMedia Sets Late May HBO Max Launch (The Hollywood Reporter) AT&T’s HBO Max Will Dive Into Crowded Streaming Market on May 27 (Bloomberg) Kickstarter plans layoffs after new projects on the site drop off by 35 percent (The Verge) 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 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Sonos launches its own streaming radio service. Huge trove of Facebook accounts has been purchased on the dark web. Google goes with free to compete with Amazon and product search. Kickstarter is seeing a huge drop in project launches, and we finally have a date for the HBO Max launch.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Sonos has launched its own streaming radio. product called appropriately enough Sonos Radio. It comes preloaded now on the Sonos app with more than 60,000 stations from multiple partners alongside original programming. It is free to use and it should show up in a software update rolling out today, quoting the verge. Sonos says radio playback accounts for nearly half of all the time that customers spend listening to its products. Quote, complementing the 100 plus streaming options available on Sonos, the new service introduces a holistic and cohesive way to explore radio, bringing together more than 60,000 stations from multiple streaming partners alongside original programming from Sonos, the company said in its press release.

These partners include Tune In and IHeart Radio to obvious go-to picks for this category. In the local radio section of Sonos Radio, you'll be able to easily pull up your local NPR station, sports talk, news shows, or other favorites, or listen to something from across the globe if you choose. You won't get every feature of Tune In or IHeart Radio as part of Sonos Radio, but the partnerships check off the core function of streaming live radio. Sonos says more partners, including Radio.com in the U.S. and global in the UK, are coming soon. But the second, more interesting pillar of Sonos Radio is original programming, found under the Sonos Presents section.

and this is headlined by an ad-free station called Sonos Sound System. Think of it like Apple's Beats One. The company converted the basement of its currently closed flagship retail store in Soho into a recording and production facility, end quote. There are also artists curated stations, the first of which comes from Radiohead's Tom York, and also Sonos stations, which are genre-based stations that do have ads on them. I'm currently testing all of this out.

as I write these very words. A cyber security firm says it has bought a database on the dark web that contained the personal information of more than 267 million Facebook users, including full names and phone numbers. The researchers paid 500 British pounds or about $623 for this treasure trove. This is from bleeping computer. Last month, security researcher Bob Diachenko discovered an open elastic search database that contained a little over 267 million Facebook records, with most being users from the United States.

For many of these records, they contained a user's full name, their phone number, and a unique Facebook ID. The ISP hosting the database eventually took the server offline after being contacted by Diocenko. Soon after, a second server containing the same data plus an additional 42 million records was brought online, but was quickly attacked by unknown threat actors who left a message telling the owners to secure their servers.

Of this new data, 16.8 million records included more information such as a Facebook user's email address, birth date, and gender. It was not discovered who these servers belonged to, but Dijchenko believed that it was owned by a criminal organization who stole the data using the Facebook API before it was locked down or via scraping public records, end quote. The researchers told bleeping computer that they purchased the database so they could add the data to the am I breached.com breach notification service, so I guess look for yourself on there soon. Note as well that the data does not contain passwords, but since it does contain email addresses and phone numbers, this could obviously be used for spearfishing campaigns or even SMS text

messages pretending to be from Facebook. I think I said this last time, but I had assumed that the app store was pretty much everywhere it could be by now. So I continue to be wrong about that because Apple just announced it has launched the App Store, iCloud, Apple Arcade, and Apple Podcasts in 20 new countries. I knew this one was still rolling out, though. They also announced that Apple Music has expanded to 52 new countries. So since I seem to be behind the eight ball on this, quoting TechCrunch for the official tally, quote,

App Store is now available in 175 countries and regions, whereas Apple Music has reached 167 markets. In comparison, music streaming service giant Spotify is available in fewer. than 100 nations. We're delighted to bring many of Apple's most beloved services to users in more countries than ever before, said Oliver Schusser, Apple's vice president of Apple Music and international content in a statement. We hope our customers can discover their new favorite apps, games, music, and podcast as we continue to celebrate the world's best creators, artists, and developers, he added, end quote. In an effort to combat Amazon's dominance in product search,

Google is now letting merchants list their products for free in the Google shopping search results, quoting search engine land. This is an evolution we've been watching closely and in many ways is a back-to-the-future moment for Google product search which used to be free. Remember frugal? Before it shifted to a purely paid product in 2012. Two things have changed since that time, data quality and Amazon. Before going entirely paid, Google's product search suffered from a quality problem with listings that often led to out-of-stock or entirely different items altogether. Google's ability to ensure that the information in a product feed matches the data on the site has advanced significantly since then. Then there's Amazon. Google has seen the e-commerce giant

continued to gain share in product search and advertising. Limiting the universe of products available in Google's shopping results to those retailers who are willing to pay has put Google's search power at a disadvantage. Opening up to all merchants will, enhance Google's offering and its appeal to both sellers and consumers. And as on Amazon, merchants that want to ensure prominent visibility in the search results, now more competitive with more products eligible to show, will continue to pay for ads. For e-commerce marketers and SEOs, the move adds a new layer to organic product search optimization efforts, end quote. The main Google search page will not change, and those carousel of ads for product listings

that you sometimes see will remain ad only. It's in the Google Shopping Hub, where you'll start to see these free listings, which will be generated by product data feeds uploaded to the Google Merchant Center. Sellers have to opt in to surface their products across Google for these listings to be visible. Facebook has controversially removed some events pages that called for protests of stay-at-home orders, saying, quote, events that defy government guidance on social distancing aren't allowed, end quote. Quoting from NBC News, Facebook has removed posts promoting events in a handful of states planning protests against stay-at-home measures meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The events, which were planned in California, Nebraska, and New Jersey, violated protective

measures imposed by governors, Facebook said. Quote, unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. For the same reason, events that defy government's guidance on social distancing aren't allowed on Facebook, end quote. More than 100 state-specific Facebook groups made up of more than 900,000 members have been created in the last two weeks to protest the stay-at-home orders, according to an unpublished analysis by first draft, a disinformation research organization. The pages have organized at least

49 different events, end quote. Don't know what to make of this, but Google's head of quantum computing hardware, John Martinez, has resigned from his position, reportedly after disagreements with Harmut Nevin, Google's quantum AI director. You might recall that Google touted late last year that it had reached quantum supremacy, something that it likened to the Wright brothers' first airplane flight. And yet the head of one of the teams responsible for that achievement is now gone. This comes from Wired. Martinez resigned from Google earlier this month, quote, since my professional goal is for someone to build a quantum computer, I think my resignation is the best course of action for everyone, he wrote. A Google spokesman did not dispute this account

and says that the company is grateful for Martinez's contribution, and that Nevin continues to head the company's quantum project. Parent company Alphabet has a second smaller quantum computing group at its X-Labs research unit. Martinez retains his position as a professor at the UC Santa Barbara, which he held throughout his tenure at Google and says he will continue to work on quantum computing. Google's quantum computing project was founded by Nevin, who pioneered Google's image search technology in 2006 and initially focused on software to start the small group accessed quantum hardware from Canadian startup D-Wave systems, including in collaboration with NASA.

The project took on greater scale and ambition when Martinez joined in 2014 to establish Google's quantum hardware lab in Santa Barbara, bringing along several members of his university research group. His nearby lab at UC Santa Barbara had produced some of the most prominent work in the field over the past 20 years, helping to demonstrate the potential of using superconducting circuits to build qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, end quote. This is an arena that's quite a bit out of the circles that I personally travel in, so let me just quote Brian Romella on Twitter who suggests, this might be a philosophical disagreement on how to move forward with the tech, quote, we'll see more of these types of

situations in quantum computing. There are rather large debates on the direction of the technologies and how to achieve it. Google just lost a brilliant leader with John Martinez leaving, end quote, to which Philip Heads tweeted, quote, guess those two couldn't agree or disagree. Perhaps they should have superimposed their quantum states, end quote. We officially have the launch date for one of the biggest entrance into the streaming video wars. HBO Max will launch on May 27th for $15 a month and featuring $10,000. hours of programming, including the likes of Friends and Big Bang Theory. Just months ago, we were wondering if HBO Max might be launching a bit late into the streaming scrum. Disney Plus and Apple Plus

launched months ago. Feels like years ago at this point, but maybe now is the optimum time to launch. We shall see, quoting the Hollywood reporter. Amid the competitive landscape, WarnerMedia top brass, we're hoping to use a buzzed-about reunion special featuring the cast of Friends to draw attention to HBO Max, which will be the exclusive home to all 236 episodes of the sitcom classic. But the coronavirus shutdown prevented the special from being filmed in time for launch. Instead, Warner Media will rely on a handful of originals, including scripted comedy, Love Life, starring Anna Kendrick, documentary On the Record, ballroom dance competition series legendary, and Sesame Workshop late night entry, The Not Too Late Show with Elmo,

to lure subscribers. Other originals set to debut later in the year include thriller The Flight Attendant, starring Kaylee Quoco, documentary Expecting Amy about comedian Amy Schumer's life on tour during a difficult pregnancy, and J.G. Quintel's adult animated comedy close enough. TBS Comedy Search Party will also move to HBO Max where it will return with a new season. Quote, our number one goal is having extraordinary content for everyone in the family and the HBO Max programming mix. We are so excited to unveil on May 27th will bear that out, Warner Media Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer Chairman Robert Greenblatt said in a statement. Even in the midst of this unprecedented pandemic, the all-star teams behind every aspect of HBO Max will deliver a platform and a robust slate of content that is varied of the highest quality and second to none. I'm knocked out by the breadth and depth of our new offering from the Max originals, our Warner Brothers Library, and acquisition titles from around the world, and of course the entirety of HBO, end quote.

is consolidating its library of IP under one umbrella with HBO Max. The service will feature all current and former HBO shows, including The Sopranos, The Wire and Game of Thrones, as well as current and classic WB movies, like crazy rich Asians, A Star is Born, Joker, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, and Citizen Kane, end quote. But actually, I missed something. Quoting Bloomberg, Comcast's streaming entrant, Peacock had a subdued debut last week, with the service only available to some of the company's own cable subscribers. A much bigger promotion which was to coincide with the since-postponed Olympic Games and summer film releases has been pushed into next year, end quote.

Indeed, that launch was so subdued that it completely missed my radar, but then only specific people have a chance to check it out, apparently. So maybe we'll be hearing more about this in the near future. And finally today from my file of layoffs and also from the corners of the tech world affected by the pandemic that maybe you wouldn't have thought of, the Verge saw an internal memo from Kickstarter,

which says it will likely lay off employees and restructure its entire business because it is seeing projects launched on Kickstarter down by around 35% year over year. Quoting the Verge. CEO Aziz Hassan writes that the crowdfunding company has already seen a significant drop in crowdfunding projects being listed on the site,

which is how Kickstarter makes its money. Projects are down about 35 percent, the memo states, with, quote, no clear sign of rebound, end quote. Conversations are now starting with Kickstarter's union organizers about potential layoffs. 60 percent of Kickstarter's 140 employees are union members, and they successfully voted to unionize in February this year, making them the first major technology company to do so. Hassan writes that the company brought in $1.27 million in after-tax profit last year, and that money has already been reinvested back into the business. He's now looking for more significant cost-cutting, including reducing senior leader's salaries, including his own,

not automatically hiring back open roles and cutting the budget wherever we can. Still layoffs are likely imminent. Quote, we must look more broadly at ways to restructure the business, including potential layoffs across teams and at all levels of staff, the memo states. Hassan says Kickstarter is in talks with the Office of Professional Employee International Union or OPEIU, which represents Kickstarter's union. The OPEIU says it has begun discussions with Kickstarter management, but it's still too early in the process to comment further. Kickstarter has tried to encourage creators to keep posting projects during the pandemic. It launched a program that solicits small-scale projects that can be worked on from home. At the same time, it started

moderating COVID-19 projects to weed out any that pushed misinformation or phony solutions, while still promoting other projects that use the pandemic for good, like social distancing achievement stickers, end quote. Nothing for you today. Kind of a bit slammed, actually, so I'll talk to you tomorrow.