Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 04/28 – CES Says: “We’re Doing It Live!”

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

The Consumer Technology Association says they’re doing it live! As in, an in-person CES once again. Samsung announces two superlight laptops that are nonetheless, still “pro.” Netflix launches a new interface to take away what to watch fatigue. A roundup of tech earnings. And help Microsoft pick a new default font for Office. Sponsors: Red-ID.com/brian Oracle.com/goto/ride Links: CES will return to Las Vegas as an in-person event in 2022 (The Verge) Samsung’s new Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 are lightweight laptops with OLED screens (The Verge) AirPods demand reportedly falling as Apple cuts production by 25-30% (9 to 5 Mac) Inside Netflix’s Quest to End Scrolling: How the company is working to solve one of its biggest threats: decision fatigue. (Vulture) Huawei reports 16.5% drop in revenues in first quarter, warns of ‘another challenging year’ ahead (CNBC) Microsoft is changing the default Office font and wants your help to pick a new one (The Verge) 52-Week High Newsletter Tool (https://reading-waves.ghost.io/) 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 Right Home for Wednesday, April 28th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. The Consumer Technology Association says they're doing it live, as in an in-person CES once again.

Samsung announces two super light laptops that are nonetheless still pro. Netflix launches a new interface to alleviate what-to-watch fatigue, a roundup of tech earnings, and help Microsoft pick a new default font for office. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. You know that phrase everyone uses to describe largely the hopes of emerging from COVID times, something like nature is healing. Yeah, well, this is the tech world is healing. The Consumer Technology Association says CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, will return to Las Vegas as an in-person event in 2022, and will be held from January 5th to January 8th, quoting the verge. We're thrilled

to return to Las Vegas, home to CES for more than 40 years, and look forward to seeing many new and returning faces, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the CTA in an announcement. For what it's worth, the CTA had always intended to return to an in-person CES in 2022. The group had already announced plans to do so in July of 2020 when it announced that CES 2021 would be shifting to an all-digital format due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Other major tech conferences like IFA 2021 in the fall are also returning to in-person events this year. CES 2020 will be held from January 5th through the 8th with the usual media days preceding the conference itself on January 3rd and 4th. According to the announcements, the upcoming conference will be a hybrid of sorts with events set to take place both physically and digitally.

Confirmed attendees will include major tech companies like Amazon, AMD, AT&T, Dell, Google, Hyundai, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, LG, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Sony. The CTA says that CES 2020 will be following the CDC's coronavirus safety guidelines, along with state and local guidelines for Nevada and the city of Las Vegas to ensure a safe event for attendees, end quote. Samsung held another unpacked event this morning, and as expected, they announced two new lightweight laptops with OLED, screens, the Galaxy Book Pro, which starts at $1,000 and the Galaxy Book Pro 360, a convertible laptop starting at $1,200. You can pre-order them both today. They'll ship on May 14th, quoting The Verge. Samsung already sells several

Galaxy Books, such as the Ultra Light Galaxy Book S and the Q-LED display-equipped Galaxy Flex and Galaxy Book Ion. The Galaxy Book Pro isn't a direct sequel to any of these older devices. Samsung told me it's not discontinuing any of them either. Rather, the Pro attempts to combine a few of the features that have made previous Galaxy Books stand out into a single high-level machine. The most significant of these is the OLED display. Previous Galaxy books have had Q-LED screens, which are LCD panels with Samsung's quantum dot technology, and Samsung's Galaxy Chromebook was the first Chromebook with a 4K OLED screen. Now, the Galaxy Book Pro and Pro 360 are Samsung's first OLED Windows PCs. Specifically, the Galaxy Book Pro has Samsung's

standard Amo-led display, while the Galaxy Book Pro 360 has what Samsung calls a super Amelad display. The difference is that the Super Amelad has an integrated touch function. Samsung told me that it's also going to be brighter and more power efficient than a regular OLED. Another unique feature is the weight. Not only are these some of the lightest Galaxy books, they'll be some of the lightest laptops you can buy, period. The Pro 13 starts at just 1.92 pounds, or 0.87 kilograms. That's close to AIS's expert book B9450, which is the lightest clamshell I've ever tested. Very few laptops are lighter. The Pro 360 models are a bit heftier, starting at 2.29 pounds, but that's still very portable as far as touchscreen convertables go.

Dell's XPS 13-2-1 starts at 2.9 pounds, for example. Finally, we're seeing a new S-pen for the first time. New is maybe a strong word. The difference between this and the S-pen that comes with 2019's Galaxy Book Flex is that this one is 2.5 times thicker. Samsung says this will provide a more true-to-life writing experience. To be fair, it does feel a heck of a lot like a real pen, end quote. This is how Joanna Stern summed up everything on Twitter, quote,

Samsung, what do we have to do to make a real M1 MacBook Air competitor? Add OLED, touchscreens, make thinner and lighter, add fingerprint sensor, include HDMI and microSD slots, and use Intel chips, but add a no-fan mode, end quote. This is odd to me. Niki Asia says Apple is trimming planned production of AirPods by 25 to 30%. They're now expecting only to make 75 to 85 million. AirPods units in 2021 compared to a previous forecast of $110 million, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. The downward revision indicates that demand is weakening for AirPods whose shipments have been growing

by double-digit percentages since their introduction in 2016. That's resulting in discounts being offered to move stock with a leading Chinese e-commerce platform currently selling AirPods Pro at 25% below the official retail price. If accurate, it's unlikely that Apple will be too concerned at this stage. The company is still by far the dominant player in the true wireless in-ear headphone market, though its share has been falling for some time. Back in January, Counterpoint estimated that Apple's market share last year fell from 41% to 29% in the course of nine months. In particular, there has been a large increase in the number of brands offering much more affordable wireless in-ear headphones. Half of the top 10 brands in the market offer sub-50 products. Amazon also recently

launched a second-generation model of Echo Buds with a wireless charging case and the option of a white color. All the same, Apple's 29% share is more than twice that of its nearest competitor, Zhaum, and third place, Samsung, has just 5% of the market, end quote. Netflix has launched Play Something, an opt-in viewing mode that gives the service a more TV-like feel in the sense of you just turn it on and there's already something playing. This is mainly in order to help solve that tricky decision fatigue problem. Quoting Vulture. While Netflix's current discovery tools work well,

they still require users to put in some work browsing the platform's virtual aisles, or at least expend some brain cells deciding which piece of box art or trailer merits clicking. There was no way to lean back and simply watch TV. Figuring out how to fix that was what led Netflix to launch play something. The goal of this new shuffle feature is to eliminate or at least ease, the peak TV-era anxiety so many of us feel while trying to find something

to watch. But unlike Netflix's past attempt to do something similar, it won't be automatic. You'll have to opt in, either at startup or when you're browsing your homepage. If you do, the usual page upon page of box art and show descriptions disappears. Instead, the Netflix Matrix chooses something it thinks you'll be into and just start streaming it, along with an on-screen graphic briefly explaining why it shows that title. Don't like what you see. A quick button press skips ahead to another selection. If you suddenly decide an earlier selection is actually a better pick, you can also go backwards. The feature will initially be available to all Netflix TV apps and on mobile for Android devices, end quote.

And quoting the verge. The play something button will appear in several places on Netflix's app, including underneath your profile when you log in, the left side navigation bar, and in the 10th row of Netflix's homepage. The company has been testing the feature for months under a variety names including shuffle play, but today marks its official worldwide debut for all Netflix users. Netflix is stressing that the Play Something button isn't just a random button that throws you to the metaphorical wolves of the streaming services nearly endless well of content. Rather, the feature uses your existing profile and taste in shows and movies to surface similar titles based on what kinds of things you already watch. The button will show a variety of

algorithmically curated content, including entirely new shows and movies. series or films you've already started, or something on your watch list, end quote. Going to try something different today. I'm going to try to consolidate all of yesterday's tech earnings news into one segment. Let's start with Alphabet. Several quarters ago, I heard whispers from folks that if any of the big tech platforms was maybe in danger of hitting a wall in terms of earnings growth, it was going to be Alphabet, squeezing water from a stone vis-a-vis Google advertising especially or something.

like that. Well, never let it be said that I don't abandon narratives when they prove to be wrong, because those whispers I were hearing were very wrong. Alphabet reported earnings that were amazing. Revenue was up 34% year over year, which is the fastest the company has grown since 2013. And Alphabet's profit, a year ago, their quarterly profits were $6.8 billion. This past quarter, their net income was $17.9 billion. That would be more. then. Those profit numbers were 66% higher than even analysts were expecting. YouTube ads came in at $6.01 billion during the quarter. That means that YouTube is growing revenue at 49% year over year. Let me let Dario Bessonjo tell you what that means. Quote, YouTube is on track to make $29 to $30 billion this year.

Netflix is expected to make about $29.7 billion this year. This is bonkers. for a company Google bought for $1.65 billion, which everyone thought was overpaying for a lawsuit magnet with no potential revenue streams, end quote. Heck, even Google cloud revenues were up 45% and losses narrowed there. Meanwhile, Microsoft also killed it, and since I don't want your eyes to roll back in your head with tons and tons of numbers, the actual numbers aren't important. Just concentrate on the fact that this was growth across the board. Even 19% growth in personal computing, which for Microsoft means sales of Windows and Office, which means people bought PCs a lot in COVID times. Even revenue from LinkedIn's ads business called LinkedIn Marketing Solutions grew 60% year-over-year to more than $3 billion in the year ending March 31st.

Quoting Shura Ovide on Twitter, the technical term for Alphabet and Microsoft earnings today is crap loads of money, or maybe bonkers dollars, end quote. or the term I would use would be Nutso Butso. Anyway, who else? Shopify, still doing well. You know, revenue up 110% year over year as you do. And Spotify. To be clear, Spotify, not Shopify. Spotify surprised a lot of people

reporting Q1 profit of 23 million euros, which was up from 1 million euros in profit a year earlier. Revenue was 2.15 billion euros up 16% year over year. Most importantly for them, they reported 356 million monthly active users up 24% and 158 million paid subscribers up 21% year over year. Interesting thing there is, Spotify's ad revenue was up 46% year over year, so that means probably their podcast bet is starting to pay off. March saw an all-time high in terms of podcast share of platform consumption hours, according to Spotify.

and Renegades, born in the USA, its podcast featuring Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, was number two in terms of the largest podcast on Spotify in March on a monthly active user basis. Finally, one story that goes in the opposite direction. Huawei reported revenue of $23.5 billion in Q1, which was down 16.5% year over year, the second consecutive quarter in which Huawei's revenues have declined, quoting CNBC. This was largely down to pain in Huawei's consumer business, which includes smartphones and other devices. Huawei hasn't been able to ship its phones with Google's licensed Android operating system since the company's parted ways in 2019.

Huawei's smartphone shipments plunged 41% in the fourth quarter of 2020. The company sold its honor budget smartphone brand to a consortium of investors last year. 2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it's also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape. Eric Zhu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said in a statement, we thank our customers and partners for their ongoing trust. No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience, not just to survive, but to do so sustainably, end quote. Finally today, Microsoft is changing the default font for office for the first time in 15 years.

Say goodbye to Calibri and say hello to, well, they don't know what yet. but they want you to help them decide, quoting the verge. While there are more than 700 font options inward, Microsoft has commissioned five new custom fonts for office in a move away from the Calibri font, which has been the default in Microsoft Office for nearly 15 years. The five new sans-serif fonts feature a variety of styles, including traditional, modern, and even one inspired by German road and railway signs. Microsoft is starting to gather feedback on these five new fonts. fonts today, and it plans to select one as the new Office default font in 2022. Microsoft is releasing

these five new fonts in Microsoft 365, so everyone can try them out before a new default is chosen. Polls and feedback will be considered as part of how Microsoft picks a winner, and the company is going to spend the next few months evaluating these new fonts and seeing which ones are proving popular. Once a decision has been made, the new default font will appear in Microsoft Office apps in 2022, end quote. The five fonts in question are tenor. Stina, Skeena, Beardstatt, I'm guessing that's the German one, Seiford, and Grandview. And obviously, me describing them to you would be pointless. So do click through to the link to this story and the show notes to see them for yourself.

Do you remember when I put the word out for folks to help me find a tool that would let me screen for tech stocks that were hitting 52 week or even all-time highs as a way to get ahead of the curve in terms of finding what tech companies were suddenly doing well so I could start to research them and put them on my radar. Well, listener Minji She went out and built such a tool. It's in the form of a newsletter called Reading Waves. You can find it at readingdashwaves.govst.io, which I'll be sure to put a link at the very bottom of the show notes, so you can find it there as well. And already, look at what it taught me this morning. The number one stock is. in his screen is a tech company called Fortinet, which has hit 52-week highs 26 times so far this year. I had never heard of Fortinette.

Had you? Turns out that they're a cybersecurity company that a lot of people might have to end up turning to to help clean up from the whole Solar Winds hack. Here's another one, ultra-clean holdings. Never heard of them either, but they've had new highs 23 times this year. Why? Well, let me quote from the company profile on MarketWatch. Ultra Clean Holdings designs, manufacturers, and sells its products and services primarily to customers in the semiconductor capital equipment industry, end quote. In other words, if the world suddenly is in need of a ton more semiconductor fabs to be built from the ground up, it sounds like ultra clean holdings are the folks that help you do just that.

Amazing, right? useful for me for the show, keeping an eye on things. And obviously, no one should use such a tool to make investment decisions, but it would be useful to keep an eye on the tech industry generally, right? Thank you, Minji Shi, for taking an idea I tossed off and just running with it. Again, check it out, link in the show notes, and maybe subscribe to the newsletter yourself. He's building it out right now, apparently, and he's taking feedback and input, so give him some of that. Talk to you tomorrow.