Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 10/06 - G Suite Is No More! (But Don’t Worry)

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

G Suite is no more! But don’t worry. It’s just a name change. Apple is removing non-Apple headphones from its stores. And AT&T is killing DSL. Why that’s a problem for a lot of people. Putting interactive advertising on convenience store coolers is sort of obvious. But why it SHOULD be obvious that an internet connected chastity belt is a bad idea. Sponsors: Monday.com/ride Fundrise.com/techmeme Links: G Suite is now Google Workspace (TechCrunch) Apple Stops Selling Rival Earphones, Speakers Ahead of Launches (Bloomberg) Facebook's Portal adds support for Netflix, Zoom and other features (TechCrunch) AT&T kills DSL, leaves tens of millions of homes without fiber Internet (Ars Technica) Cooler Screens raises $80M to bring interactive screens into cooler aisles (TechCrunch) Security flaw left ‘smart’ chastity sex toy users at risk of permanent lock-in (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 TechMeme ride home for Tuesday, October 6th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. G Suite is no more, but don't worry, it's just a name change.

Apple is removing non-Apple headphones from its stores, and AT&T is killing DSL, why that last bit is a problem for a lot of people. Putting interactive advertising on convenience store coolers is sort of obvious, but why it should be obvious to everyone that an internet-connected chastity belt is a bad idea. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. G Suite is no more. But before you freak out, no, this is not another case of Google getting bored with one of its thousands of projects and just ending that project. At least, that's not what they're doing yet. No, what I mean is that Google has rebranded G Suite as Google Workspace.

As a part of this, it has integrated meet, chat, and rooms across all its applications, and it has introduced new logos for all the apps in the suite. But again, it's not a suite anymore. Quoting TechCrunch. G Suite, as the brand for Google's paid offering originally launched in 2016. In a press briefing ahead of today's announcement, Google's Joltero, the company's VP and GM for what is now Google Workspace, noted that the company wanted to ensure that the service that people use

is the same thing that people buy. Quote, by selecting Google Workspace, we get the brand association with Google, which is really important to us. said. These products are flagship products for Google itself and the ability to actually describe the product in the same way, whether it's to a buyer or a user, end quote. Google, he added, wants its customers to see Workspace as a product that brings together all the tools they need to get their work done. What's may be far more important for the brand, though, is that Google is also launching a few new features for G Suite slash workspace today. For the most part,

these are the meat, chat, and rooms integrations. The company already announced earlier the summer. Google is now integrating all of these collaboration tools across its applications with Gmail currently being the one service where they all come together. Among the new features that are coming soon are the ability to create and collaborate on documents with guests in chat rooms and to preview linked files in docs, sheets, and slides without having to open them in a new tab. Whenever you at mention somebody in a document, workspace will also pop up a smart chip, as Google calls it, to show you contact details and suggest actions. Think starting a video call or or chat or to email them if you're old school.

Gmail and chat already feature a picture and picture mode that allows you to have Google meet video calls in those services. This feature will roll out to docs, sheets, and slides in the coming months too, end quote. Pricing remains precisely the same for all of these products, though the name of the various tiers of service plans and products is tweaked slightly. So really, again, this is just a name change, an important one, but just a name change, though one wonders if this would cause confusion with Facebook workplace. And, okay, I can't resist the snark.

Quoting Jake Davis. The Google Random Name Generator, hard at work, end quote. And Javier Candiera, quote, Your Google Age is the number of chat products that Google has released in your lifetime, multiplied by one, end quote. This one might be more eyebrow-raising. Apple has apparently removed headphones and speakers made by the likes of Bose, Logitech and Sonos from its online store. Not only that, it has apparently been sending out

memos to retail employees to do the same in their physical retail stores, quoting Mark German in Bloomberg. The Cupertino-California-based technology giant has long-sold third-party hardware on its website, one of the largest e-commerce operations in the world. All headphones and speakers from Bose. Speakers from Logitech's ultimate ears brand and Sonas's latest smart speaker disappeared from Apple's online store at the end of last month, according to checks by Bloomberg. Employees at Apple's physical retail locations were also instructed to remove the products for sale at stores in recent days. Shares of Sonos fell as much as 7% in extended trading following the news. The move comes as Apple develops multiple new products to expand on its audio strategy.

The first Apple-branded over-ear headphones could be announced as early as this year, Bloomberg has reported. The company has also been working on a smaller version of its home pod smart speaker. Apple has cleared its digital and physical retail shelves before to make way for its own new products. In 2014, it stopped selling Fitbit wearables soon after announcing the Apple Watch. The company pulled Bowers and Wilkins products a few years ago and removed Bang and Oliveson's devices from store shelves earlier this year, end quote. So I guess we should expect invites to the next Apple event in three, two, one. Hey, I'm actually cutting in with an edit right now. Apple did indeed announce that the next Apple event will be a week from today,

October 13th at 10 a.m. PDT, also known as 1 p.m. East Coast time. But also, quoting Ben Wood, the danger of dependence on Apple retail, a double-edged sword for third parties like Sonos, Logitech, and Bose. Volumes are great while you are ranged, but it seems Apple is happy to drop you like a stone if it decides to move in on your domain, end quote. Yeah, it's funny how we've been talking so much about platforms being both marketplaces and direct competitors to the vendors that operate on those

marketplaces lately. It's just that we've usually been talking about it in the sense of it being a digital platform in the App Store context. Apple Music competes directly with Spotify, but Apple could never get away with just taking Spotify out of the App Store, right? It's interesting when you put it in that context, isn't it? Apple doesn't have to stock anything on its physical shelves that it doesn't want to, and yet we're all up in arms when Apple makes decisions on what it stocks on its digital shelves. Facebook has added support for Netflix to Portal TV and Zoom to the Portal Mini, Portal and Portal Plus devices, as expected, quoting TechCrunch. Portal TV, the media device that works with your TV at home, today offers access to

range of streaming services including Amazon Prime Video, Showtime, and Sling TV. But until now, one of the most important streaming services, Netflix, has been missing. Facebook says Netflix will now be introduced to Portal TV in all countries where Portal is sold. It will also introduce a new remote that will include one-touch buttons for launching streaming apps like Prime Video Netflix and its own Facebook watch. This will ship with new Portal TV devices starting today and will be sold in stores in the coming weeks. Facebook will also bring Zoom, to its portal devices for video calling, it says. In August, Zoom had confirmed its plans to support smart displays, including Echo Show and Google Nest Hub Max, as well as portal from Facebook.

With portal support, Zoom users will be able to host a video call with up to 25 people on the screen while leveraging the device's high fidelity sound and its AI-powered smart camera for hands-free calling, says Facebook. The support will be added to the Portal Mini, Portal, and Portal Plus, in all regions where the device is sold, end quote. We started this episode by teasing that Google might have killed a popular product. That was a redirect on my part. But this is real. AT&T is in the process of killing its DSL product.

Ars Technica says that AT&T is no longer connecting new DSL users. And that's going to leave quite a few people stranded. Quote, AT&T has deployed fiber to the home internet in less than 30% of the households in its 21 state territory, according to a new report that says AT&T has targeted. wealthy non-rural areas in its fiber upgrades. The report co-written by an AT&T workers union and an advocacy group is timely. Being issued just a few days after AT&T confirmed it will stop connecting new customers to its aging DSL network.

That does not mean customers in DSL areas will get fiber, though, because AT&T last year said it was mostly done expanding its fiber service. AT&T said at the time it would only expand fiber incrementally in areas where it makes financial sense for AT&T to do so. We'll provide more detail on the DSL cutoff later in this article. In short, the fiber slash copper hybrid known as AT&T internet is still offered to new customers, but the slower product that AT&T sells under the DSL name is being discontinued except for existing customers. Siting data that ISPs are required to submit to the Federal Communications Commission, the report issued today said that AT&T has built fiber to the home to 28% of the

households in its footprint as of June 30th, 2019. The report was written by the Communications Workers of America, a union that represents AT&T employees. There are 52.97 million households in AT&T's home internet service area, and 14.93 million of them have fiber to the home access, the CWA told ours. The fiber percentages were particularly bad in some states, with rates as low as 14 to 16 percent in Michigan, Illinois, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Across the predominantly rural counties in AT&T's national footprint, only 5% of households have access to fiber, the report said. In urban areas, the situation is better, but not problem-free.

Quote, 70% of households in urban counties still lack access to fiber from AT&T because the company has made fiber available to only 14.7 million households out of 48.4 million total households in these counties, the report said. end quote. As for that discontinuing of DSL, which I had not heard about, quote, AT&T reported 653,000 total DSL connections at the end of its second quarter compared to 14.48 million on its fiber optic and hybrid fiber services, the article said. The latter, sold as AT&T internet, combines fiber trunk lines with DSL last mile connections for faster speeds. An AT&T statement said, quote, We're beginning to phase out outdated services like DSL, and new orders for the service will no longer be supported after October 1st.

Current DSL customers will be able to continue their existing service or where possible upgrade to our 100% fiber network, end quote. AT&T's official DSL webpage has been updated to state that, quote, AT&T no longer offers DSL service, end quote. Yes, but if, as the report notes, AT&T only wants to lay fiber in areas where it's profitable and easy to do, so. As the piece notes, quote, with AT&T now preventing new DSL connections entirely, customers in areas without cable are in an even worse predicament than before, end quote. Interesting, Ray's Tuesday, Chicago-based cooler screens actually does what the name implies. It replaces the glass doors on the coolers that you often see in convenience stores, where they keep the soda and the milk. They replace that glass with screens, interactive displays,

the better to show advertising on, and they've raised $80 million in a Series C from Verizon, Microsoft, and others to continue doing that, quoting TechCrunch. Cooler screens is led by co-founder and CEO Arson Avakian, who previously was founder and CEO of Argo T. Avakian told me that before starting Argo, he worked at a number of technology companies, including I2 Technologies. The joke was, I went from IT to T, and now I'm back to IT, he said. He also suggested the startup draws on all of his past experience. While Cooler screens is a tech company, it also requires an understanding of how to build a consumer brand. The idea of replacing simple glass doors with electronic displays might seem unnecessary or even annoying, but Evacian said his first priority is winning

consumers' hearts. After all, we're used to doing as much research as we want before buying a product online, but very little of that information is available in the brick and mortar shopping experience. Avakian said, Cooler screens is changing that. Quote, you could ask the screens, show me all the vegan items, or how many calories are in this product, end quote. And it's already available in some stores. After installing screens in 50 Walgreens locations in the Chicago area where cooler screens is based, the startup announced plans to expand to 2,500 Walgreens stores across the United States. Other partners include Kroger and GetGo.

Avakian says he pitches stores on a partnership for sophisticated digital merchandising and contextual advertising technology. He added, quote, We can digitize your stores, and as we do that, we're willing to put our money where our mouth is and show you that the consumer will love us. The NPS scores will be through the roof, and if we can prove all of that to you, we'd love to start bringing into this marketplace the CPG brands that are relevant to consumers in your stores, and now we become the last mile of advertising, end quote. Avakian says that unlike most forms of digital advertising, cooler screens, doesn't gather any personal information about the viewer. Instead, its appeal to advertisers is the fact that it gives

them away to reach consumers, quote, in a safe environment where they're in the mindset for shopping, end quote. Okay, quick warning that you might want your kids to be out of the room for this next segment. I'll wait. Yeah, despite the fact that this might be not safe for work or not safe for kids, I can't resist doing this one. TechCrunch is reporting on a security flaw in an app-based chastity sex toy that left tens of thousands of users at risk of a permanent, remotely triggered lock-in, which for a chastity sex toy doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Quote, UK-based security firm Pentess Partners said the flaw in the Kuiwi, that's spelled QIUI, Cellmate, Internet-connected Chastity Lock, built as the world's first app-controlled

chastity device could have allowed anyone to remotely and permanently lock in the user's penis. The cellmate chastity lock works by allowing a trusted partner to remotely lock and unlock the chamber over Bluetooth using a mobile app. That app communicates with the lock using an API. But that API was left open and without a password allowing anyone to take complete control of any user's device. Because the chamber was designed to lock with a metal ring underneath the user's penis. The researchers said it may require the intervention of a heavy-duty bolt cutter or an angle grinder to free the user. Alex Lomas, a researcher at Penn Test Partners, said in a blog post that an attacker could lock, quote, everyone in or out very quickly. There is no emergency override

function either, so if you're locked in, there's no way out, he wrote. The unsecured API also allowed access to the private messages and the precise location from the user's app. TechCrunch first learned of the vulnerability in June. The researchers contacted Kuiwi, based in China, about the flawed API. Taking the vulnerable API offline would have locked in anyone currently using the device. The developer pushed out a new API for users, but left the unsecured API up for existing users. Quibi chief executive Jake Gwau told TechCrunch that a fix would arrive in August, but that deadline came and went. Quote, we are a basement team, he said, and a follow-up email explaining the risk to users, Gao said,

quote, when we fix it, it creates more problems, end quote. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of ways we could go with this one, but, you know, maybe I'll just show a little restraint. See what I did there. Yes, though, restraint. I'll let John Fruhe have the honors, quote. How many times have I said connecting everything to the internet is not necessarily a good idea? Also not a good idea? Chastity devices. But the worst idea, is the combination of the two. So one of the things I never thought I'd do a segment on when I started this podcast three years ago was internet-connected chastity belts.

Talk to you tomorrow.