Year: 2018

Smart speakers that let you control services and other connected devices in your home will continue to be a popular gift choice during the holiday season and into next year, when usage is set to rise by 15 percent to 74.2 million people in the US, working out to 26.8 percent of the US population, according to estimates from eMarketer.

But while Amazon’s Echo helped to define and still dominates the market, consumers’ love affair with Alexa may be cooling, just a little, as the Echo is finally starting to feel the heat from competitors like Home from Google, Apple’s HomePod and the Sonos One.

A new report estimates that the Echo will have accounted for nearly 67 percent of all smart speaker sales in the US in 2018, with Google taking 29.5 percent and others at 8.3 percent. But by next year, Amazon will drop to 63 percent, Google will bump up to 31 percent and a plethora of smaller OEMs will collectively take 12 percent. Three percent decline doesn’t sound like a lot, but it will be the first time ever that Amazon will have dropped below two-thirds of sales. (And for the record, eMarketer research from the UK found similar numbers and declines.)

eMarketer believes this could be the beginning of a gradual decline for the e-commerce giant that will continue through 2020 as the next wave of adopters increasingly explore other brands.

“Consumers in the market for a smart speaker have more options than ever, and Amazon will lose some of its majority share as a result,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Jaimie Chung, in a statement. “Google has the Home Mini and Home Hub to compete with Amazon’s Echo Dot and Echo Show, and both the Apple HomePod and Facebook Portal will experience their first holiday season this year. Amazon has remained relevant by plugging Alexa into premium speakers like the Sonos, but even Sonos plans to bring Google Assistant to its devices next year, keeping the two companies neck and neck in the voice assistant race.”

There is a valid question to be asked about what people use their speakers for once they do have them. The main takeaway it seems is that while some device makers may turn speakers into a tidy business, it might be some time before the apps and software built around them monetises as lucratively.

For now, the main purpose seems to be listening to audio, where smart speakers provide a handy way to call up music and hear it — which 79.8 percent of speaker owners say they have done — one reason perhaps that the Sonos and Apple’s HomePod are making some inroads since both companies have put music at the core of their experience.

Second most common usage? Inquiries at 73 percent, which is an are where search giant Google is particularly strong.

Amazon has also made Alexa, in her own way, also a fairly amusing, and sometimes helpful, assistant on various topics, helped significantly by all the skills integrations that have been built. However, one key Alexa/Echo use case for the company has always been voice commerce, providing a new interface for people to be able to shop, to fit scenarios where a screen and keyboard are not as convenient.

For now, however, eMarketer says that this a less popular usage for these devices, and that overall voice commerce will remain a very niche slice of the e-commerce market, accounting for just 0.4 percent of sales, or $2 billion. Some 27 percent of speaker owners will experiment with buying something via voice commerce next year — a number that eMarketer revised down from an earlier estimate of 31 percent, while 37.1 percent will “shop” using their smart speakers — that is, ask questions about products, if not actually buy them.

Bad news for all the companies thinking that smart speakers will usher in a new era of smart home device usage: smart home integrations are used by just 34.5 percent of smart speaker users.

One by one, European countries are slapping Uber with a penalty for the way it handled its 2016 data breach. Today, France’s data protection watchdog, the CNIL, announced it was fining Uber $460,000 (€400,000).

This event was a combination of bad security with bad reaction and good timing. Back in 2016, Uber faced a data breach that affected 57 million users, including 1.4 million users in France.

According to the CNIL’s report, hackers managed to connect to Uber’s Github repositories using some employee’s login and password. They then managed to connect to Uber’s Amazon Web Services account and download user data.

How? Very simple. AWS login information was stored in plain text on Github.

The CNIL said that it could have been avoided if:

• Uber had made two-factor authentication mandatory for the private Github repositories.
• Uber didn’t store AWS login information in plain text on Github.
• Uber used an IP whitelist to connect to AWS.

Uber first tried to cover-up the breach by paying hackers $100,000 to make them delete the data set. It eventually disclosed the breach last year.

The only good news for Uber is that the breach happened slightly too early for European Union’s GDPR. Right now, if a company doesn’t report a breach to relevant authorities within 72 hours, they can end up paying a fine of up to 4 percent of the company’s global annual turnover.

British and Dutch authorities previously fined Uber $490,000 and $690,000 respectively (£385,000 and €600,000). Overall, it represents $1.6 million in fines.

Apple has confirmed to The Verge that some iPad Pro models come slightly bent out of the box due to a manufacturing process. According to Apple, it shouldn’t impact your iPad in any way.

But if you buy a new iPad Pro, please make sure that it’s not bent in case you want to exchange it within the first couple of weeks. It’s still unclear if Apple plans to repair bent iPads once you’ve passed the return window.

The issue all started with a long forum thread on MacRumors filled with people complaining about their bent iPads. Contrarily to what most people thought, it isn’t the result of improper usage. This is due to a cooling process during manufacturing, Apple told The Verge.

And it’s true that iPads have become thin sheets of glass, aluminum and electronic components. If you try to break it in half, you’ll succeed. But it’s a bit more surprising that some iPads are already bent out of the box.

This could be particularly frustrating if you try to put your iPad down on a table and it doesn’t stay flat on the table. Here’s a photo that Bwrin1 posted on MacRumors’ forum:

I imagine that it could also create some issues if you try to use the Smart Keyboard or Smart Folio in some cases.

Spotify has settled the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by music publisher Wixen Music Publishing in December 2017. The publisher, which represented artists like Tom Petty, Missy Elliot, Stevie Nicks and Neil Young, alleged copyright infringement – saying that Spotify was using tens of thousands of songs without a proper license. The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Spotify hasn’t not filed a disclosure to shareholders with the SEC – an indication that the $1.6 billion was not awarded.

Instead, Spotify and Wixen have put out a joint statement saying they’ve agreed to a final dismissal of the lawsuit.

“The conclusion of that litigation is a part of a broader business partnership between the parties, which fairly and reasonably resolves the legal claims asserted by Wixen Music Publishing relating to past licensing of Wixen’s catalog and establishes a mutually-advantageous relationship for the future,” the statement reads.

There is a financial component to the settlement, but it’s clearly not the $1.6 billion Wixen had originally demanded, or Spotify would have needed to disclose that number to shareholders through a filing. However, we do understand the entirety of the funds from the settlement are going towards back royalty payments, while the rest of the agreement involves how royalties will be paid going forward.

Though Spotify has faced a number of lawsuits from rights holders over the years, including one it settled for $43 million back in 2017, the Wixen suit was focused on Spotify’s use of the artists’ tens of thousands of songs without proper compensation.

The complaint had alleged that “Spotify brazenly disregards United States Copyright law and has committed willful, ongoing copyright infringement,” it said.

Wixen had also claimed that Spotify “neither obtained a direct or compulsory mechanical license” for the use of its artists’ works. And it claimed that, of the then 30 million songs in Spotify’s catalog, Spotify failed to pay songwriter royalties to a publishing company approximately 21% of the time.

Below, the original complaint: 

Today, the two parties announced they’ve settled on the matter out of court.

Spotify and Wixen had been working on an agreement for some time.

According to a filing from October 16, 2018, a judge had granted the parties an extension to respond to the complaint and submit their joint discovery plan because of their “ongoing settlement discussions.” They had until December 21, 2018 to answer or respond to the complaint, the filing said, but would not be granted any further continuances.

“I want to thank Daniel Ek and Horacio Gutierrez, and the whole Spotify team, for working with the Wixen team, our attorneys and our clients to understand our issues, and for collaborating with us on a win-win resolution,” said Randall Wixen, president of Wixen Music Publishing, Inc., in a statement. “Spotify is a huge part of the future of music, and we look forward to bringing more great music from our clients to the public on terms that compensate songwriters and publishers as important partners. I am truly glad that we were able to come to a resolution without litigating the matter. Spotify listened to our concerns, collaborated with us to resolve them and demonstrated throughout that Spotify is a true partner to the songwriting community,” he said.

“We’d like to thank Randall Wixen and Wixen Music Publishing for their cooperation in helping us reach a solution,” said Horacio Gutierrez, Spotify General Counsel and VP, Business & Legal Affairs, in a statement. “Wixen represents some of the world’s greatest talents and most treasured creators, and this settlement represents its commitment to providing first-rate service and support to songwriters while broadening its relationship with Spotify.”

Spotify has been working to better address the claims by rightholders as well as their needs, from a product perspective, in more recent months. Following its 2017 settlement agreement in another suit the company was directed improve the “gathering and collecting of information about composition owners to help ensure those owners are paid their royalties in the future.”

Earlier this year, it followed up on that by launching a new songwriter credits feature, which helps to better track who deserves credit for the song. In November, it launched an analytics service for music publishers to track their artists’ streaming stats.

It also this year snatched up music licensing platform Loudr to help it be better prepared for the technical challenges that come with tracking rights, and specifically the mechanical licenses, which have been the issue in numerous legal claims.

The overall music industry has also impacted since the suit was filed by the Music Modernization Act, which was signed into law in October. The law overhauls the regulations for licensing in the streaming era. However, it says that royalty disputes originating after Jan 1, 2018 would be handled under the new law, so it would not have applied to the Wixen suit.

 

In 2006, the world’s Aibos begun a slow march toward death. After seven years, Sony discontinued the line, citing disappointing sales. The company only managed to move around 150,000 in that time frame.

By 2014, the electronics giant ended customer support altogether, leaving the remaining Aibos without support for the aging, electronic bodies. The promise of eternal life for their robotic companions proved as fleeting as life itself. Gone in the blink of an eye.

Last year’s CES offered a glimmer of home for robotic redemption. An otherwise lackluster keynote ended with a bang when Sony unveiled a half dozen of the latest Aibo models, all sitting and waddling, as curious puppies do. I’ve never seen an entire room of technology journalists utterly speechless.

Four years after the company unceremoniously issued a death sentence for an entire generation, Aibo was back, and the results were stunning. Sony had clearly mastered the perfect combination of LED eyes, head tilt and locomotion. The new Aibo is easily the most realistic and advanced the company has ever created. It takes a lot to melt the hearts of CES attendees.

The new Aibo quickly shot to the top of my list of most anticipated reviews. It took newly a year of waiting and occasionally haranguing Sony, but we finally managed to get one of our own — for a few days, at least. For a few days, Aibo patrolled TechCrunch’s New York HQ, before heading home to hang out with our videographer for a few more.

Aibo arrived, as all dogs do, in a large, cardboard egg. He is, thankfully, sound asleep inside the box. A long press of the power button on the collar wakes him up. He stirs slowly, from a near fetal position, his paws extending outward with a stretch. He acknowledges his limbs with a yawn and slowly stands, shaking himself out as though he’d just run through the sprinklers in the yard.

It’s adorable and great and super lifelike. Great care has been given to every actuated movement, and the results are easily the most impressive I’ve seen on a home robot, leaving products like Anki’s Vector behind in the process. There are 22 axes of movement in all, powered by Sony’s new proprietary actuators, giving Aibo free and realistic movement.

The real magic, however, is contained in a pair of OLED eyes, serving as the windows to Aibo’s robotic soul and the key to a puppy-like personality. There are two cameras — a front-facing one for future imaging functionality, which can be used to bring to life augmented reality features in the My Aibo app, and a second SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) located on the rear to give the dog a sense of where he is.

Once Aibo’s up and running (well, walking), he roams around autonomously, exploring the space, barking for attention. You know, like a real puppy. And like a real puppy, it’s cute until you have to get work done. Aibo’s need for attention is nearly as high as his price tag, and several times I found myself picking him up and placing him on the charging station because he was just too distracting for the office.

Aibo should be able to return to the charging pad on his own, but the young dog doesn’t always listen. Disobedience is bred — or, rather — programmed — in. The idea is that, like a real dog, training takes time. I need to caveat all of this by saying that with the limited time we were given with Aibo (due to a constraint on the number of samples Sony has on hand), we weren’t able to really teach the dog too much.

Sony says each robot has a “unique” personality — something that’s nearly impossible to gauge over the course of a few hours with a single unit. Even so, the pup is a pretty quick listener, and responded pretty well to most of the commands we threw at him. There are simple, standard tricks, like shake hands and sit down, and more complex ones like sing and dance.

Passersby were similarly impressed with the dog’s response to feedback, both through spoken affirmation and tactile feed, such as petting under different parts of his body. But they all asked the same question, to a one: “what’s the point?”

It’s a fair question for a robot that’s going to set you back around $3,000. “Companionship” was the best I could muster. Maybe you can’t have a real dog for any number of reasons, or maybe you just don’t want to pick up all the poop. For most, however, poor little Aibo will never replace the real thing.

And that price will always be a major sticking point. After all, it’s a big part of why Sony initially failed to sell many units in the first place — a fact that ultimately led to those dogs’ demise. For Aibo to succeed, Sony needs to drop the price dramatically or give users a really compelling reason to be late on their rent.

The truth is, more often than not, dog stories end in tragedy. And the story’s not likely to change for this plucky pup.

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Knowledge base is one of the departments where Alexa has lagged Assistant. After all, it’s pretty tough to compete with Google when comes to a sheer breadth of knowledge. Wolfram Alpha is a pretty good place to start. The answer engine offers a wide cross section of curated data, with a heavy focus on math and sciences.

Starting this week, U.S.-based Alexa users will get access to that information, with roll out completing over the coming weeks and months. A few of the things you’ll be able to ask Wolfram Alpha via Alexa,

Alexa, what is the billionth prime number?

Alexa, how high do swans fly?

Alexa, what is x to the power of three plus x plus five where x is equal to seven?

Alexa, how fast is the wind blowing right now?

Alexa, how many sheets of paper will fit in a binder?

Alexa, how long until the moon rises?

Wolfram pulls its own information for a wide range of sources, including its own Wolfram Mathematica and third-party resources, including CrunchBase. Alexa, for its part, is building up its own external knowledge base from a range of sites, including MDb, Accuweather, Yelp and, perhaps, most importantly, Wikipedia.

Last month, we broke the news that Corel was buying Parallels, a pioneer in virtualization, to expand its footprint in the world of business software. Now that deal is official: today Canada-based Corel confirmed that it has acquired the company. Now products like CorelDraw and productivity apps like WordPerfect will sit alongside Parallels Desktop for Mac, Parallels Toolbox for Windows and Mac, Parallels Access, Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM, and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) — key products for businesses that run networks of computers that are not all uniformly running one OS, and across multiple locations.

“We’re excited to welcome our new Parallels employees to Corel’s global organization,” said Patrick Nichols, CEO of Corel, in a statement. “From our highly complementary product portfolios to our shared business models and strategies, Corel and Parallels are a great fit. Thanks to the combined power of our technologies and teams, we see tremendous opportunities to drive continued growth and success for our businesses and most importantly, our customers.”

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed but understand from sources close to the company that it was an all-cash deal, and that it was not a big exit.

Shifting practices in the business world — the rise of cloud-based services, increasingly common bring-your-own-device hardware policies, and a wider variety of work environments outside of traditional, single offices — has created a demand for better software management practices, covering not just important things like security but also usability. That presents an opportunity for virtualization companies. Corel said it expects to make “significant investment into the Parallels business” because it believes it has “exceptional opportunities for growth”. In its case that will likely include closer integration between its existing products and those of Parallels.

“Parallels and Corel share a common vision, market leadership, and passion for innovation. We look to forward to continuing to serve our customers and partners with best-in-class software as part of Corel,” said Jack Zubarev, CEO of Parallels, in a statement.

Corel has changed ownership and gone in and out of being listed publicly a number of times since being founded in the 1980s in Ottawa. It’s now owned by Vector Capital, which is essentially the one buying Parallels and setting the investment strategy.

Parallels was originally founded in 1999 with roots in Russia and is currently headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

It has never made much of a fanfare around its financing or valuation. According to PitchBook, its last funding round was in 2015, an undisclosed amount from Endeavour Vision, KG Investments, Maxfield Capital, Savano Capital Partners and others. It raised $300 million from Ingram Micro the year before that.

As we have written before, it’s not fully clear what the rationale was for the sale, except we had heard that its investors were longstanding and looking to exit, while Corel has slowly been consolidating a number of smaller software businesses, and this fits well with its bigger strategy there. Another recent acquisition was Gravit Designer from Germany, acquired earlier this year.

The Justice Department has unsealed a damning indictment that links to spies working for the Chinese government an aggressive campaign to hack into U.S. tech and industry giants.

The indictment, out Thursday, accuses China’s main intelligence agency — the Ministry of State Security — of hacking into dozens of tech companies and government departments, largely in an effort to steal intellectual property. Prosecutors said the hackers were part of a Beijing-backed group, dubbed APT10, which various security companies had previously linked to China.

Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, both nationals and residents of China, were charged with three counts each of computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

None of the companies were named, but noted that the hackers targeted and “stole hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data” in aviation, space and satellite technology, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and oil and gas exploration, as well as from communications and computer processor firms and maritime technology companies.

Only the NASA Goddard Space Center and the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Lab were named in the filing.

The indictment also said the hackers stole personally identifiable information — including names, dates of birth, email addresses, salary information and Social Security numbers — on more than 100,000 U.S. Navy personnel.

The hackers used spearphishing — or highly targeted phishing campaigns — to install malware using malicious Microsoft Word documents and steal data from targeted computers, the indictment reads. Others used keyloggers to steal usernames and passwords to break into employees’ accounts.

“We want China to cease illegal cyber activities and honor its commitment to the international community, but the evidence suggests that China may not intend to live up to its promises.” said U.S. deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, in remarks at the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

The latest indictments come as tensions between the U.S. and China have increased following the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada, after being accused of fraud by the U.S. She faces up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.

Prosecutors said that China was conducting its “extensive” hacking campaign over the last three years. With this indictment, the Trump administration has effectively scrubbed an Obama-era bilateral agreement, signed by President Obama and China’s premier Xi Jinping in 2015, under which the two countries agreed not to launch hostile cyberattacks and espionage.

Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, which has tracked APT10 in recent years, called the Justice Department’s move “unprecedented and encouraging” to take action against China.

“Today’s announcement of indictments against Ministry of State Security (MSS), whom we deem now to be the most active Chinese cyber threat actor, is another step in a campaign that has been waged to indicate to China that its blatant theft of IP is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” he said. “While this action alone will not likely solve the issue and companies in US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan will continue to be targeted by MSS for industrial espionage, it is an important element in raising the cost and isolating them internationally.”

The U.K. government also said in a statement that it is “holding responsible elements of the Chinese government for an extensive cyber campaign.”

“The National Cyber Security Centre assesses with the highest level of probability that the group widely known as APT10 is responsible for this sustained cyber campaign focused on large-scale service providers,” said a statement from the U.K.’s Foreign Office. “The group almost certainly continues to target a range of global companies, seeking to gain access to commercial secrets.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the hacking campaign “one of the most significant and widespread cyber intrusions against the UK and allies uncovered to date.”

Several other allied nations, including Japan and Australia, are expected to release statements to support the U.S. indictment.

Prosecutors conceded that prosecutions are unlikely, given that the named hackers are Chinese residents and extraditions are rare. Thursday’s indictment represents the department’s latest in “name and shame” charges, designed to instead restrict the international travels of those named in the filing but also send a warning to others.

“We hope the day will come when the defendants face justice under the rule of law in a federal courtroom,” said Rosenstein.

China has long rebuffed complaints from other nations accusing it of cyberattacks and espionage, but didn’t immediately comment on Thursday’s indictment.

Mystery drone operator/s have grounded flights at the U.K.’s second largest airport, disrupting the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people hoping to get away over the festive period.

The BBC reports that Gatwick Airport’s runway has been shut since Wednesday night on safety grounds, after drones were spotted being flown repeatedly over the airfield.

It says airlines have been advised to cancel all flights up to at least 16:00 GMT, with the airport saying the runway would not open “until it was safe to do so.”

More than 20 police units are reported to be searching for the drone operator/s.

The U.K. made amendments to existing legislation this year to make illegal flying a drone within 1km of an airport after a planned drone bill got delayed.

The safety focused tweak to the law five months ago also restricted drone flight height to 400 ft. A registration scheme for drone owners is also set to be introduced next year.

Under current U.K. law, a drone operator who is charged with recklessly or negligently acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or a person in an aircraft can face a penalty of up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine, or both.

Although, in the Gatwick incident case, it’s not clear whether simply flying a drone near a runway would constitute an attempt to endanger an aircraft under the law. Even though the incident has clearly caused major disruption to travelers as the safety-conscious airport takes no chances.

Further adding to the misery of disrupted passengers today, the Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC it considered the event to be an “extraordinary circumstance” — meaning airlines aren’t obligated to pay financial compensation.

There’s been a marked rise in U.K. aircraft incidents involving drones over the past five years, with more than 100 recorded so far this year, according to data from the U.K. Airprox Board.

Aviation minister Baroness Sugg faced a barrage of questions about the Gatwick disruption in the House of Lords today, including accusations the government has dragged its feet on bringing in technical specifications that might have avoided the disruption.

“These drones are being operated illegally… It seems that the drones are being used intentionally to disrupt the airport, but, as I said, this is an ongoing investigation,” she told peers, adding: “We changed the law earlier this year, bringing in an exclusion zone around airports. We are working with manufactures and retailers to ensure that the new rules are communicated to those who purchase drones.

“From November next year, people will need to register their drone and take an online safety test. We have also recently consulted on extending police powers and will make an announcement on next steps shortly.”

The minister was also pressed on what the government had done to explore counterdrone technology, which could be used to disable drones, with one peer noting they’d raised the very issue two years ago.

“My Lords, technology is rapidly advancing in this area,” responded Sugg. “That is absolutely something that we are looking at. As I said, part of the consultation we did earlier this year was on counterdrone technology and we will be announcing our next steps on that very soon.”

Another peer wondered whether techniques he said had been developed by the U.K. military and spy agency GCHQ — to rapidly identify the frequency a drone is operating on, and either jam it or take control and land it — will be “given more broadly to various airports”?

“All relevant parts of the Government, including the Ministry of Defence, are working on this issue today to try to resolve it as quickly as possible,” the minister replied. “We are working on the new technology that is available to ensure that such an incident does not happen again. It is not acceptable that passengers have faced such disruption ahead of Christmas and we are doing all we can to resolve it as quickly as possible.”

A fourth Thor film may never happen (contracts and Infinity Stones depending), but the leads of the wonderfully bent Ragnarok are back to save a different beloved franchise. The first trailer for Men in Black International reunites Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as Agents H & M (the discount department store jokes write themselves), two MIB agents tasked, naturally, with saving the world from alien scourges.

The London-based spinoff of the series also stars Liam Neeson, Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani and Emma Thompson — one of the few through lines with previous entries in the series.

The first trailer for the finds Hemsworth and Thompson traveling the world under the command of Neeson and (Emma) Thompson, variously in and out of those familiar black suits. Agent M’s role appears to be similar to that of Will Smith’s in the first — a hot shot new recruit attempting to learn the ropes of the secretive organization. Hemsworth, meanwhile, knows a good hammer joke when he reads it.

Sure we’re right in the throes of the holiday movie season, but you’re going to have to wait for this one. Men in Black International is scheduled for a June 14 release.