Author: azeeadmin

To paraphrase P. T. Barnum, “there’s a Bluetooth speaker born every minute.” At no time of year is that more true than at CES in Las Vegas, where they are bountiful beyond belief. But very few — nay, only one that I found — are made of concrete. And it’s French!

The speakers immediately attracted my attention because of their simplicity and of course material. I’m generally repelled, like water, from the plastic and silicone that most speakers are made out of these days. If it’s going to be visible in my house, shouldn’t it be wood or ceramic or steel? (That’s why I like Joey Roth’s stuff so much.)

And why not concrete? It’s hard-wearing, cool-looking, tactile — and, like ceramic, actually has good qualities as far as using it for audio purposes. Or so the honest folks at Le Pavé Parisien tell me.

The speaker itself is single-channel, meaning it will mix down your music to mono (like many such speakers), but you can easily daisy chain a couple together for stereo or wire a bunch for a concrete wall of sound like they had on display.

I won’t speculate on the audio quality (it was extremely loud in the hall), but they’re marketing it as a high-end device, so it’s probably not bad. Although 60-20,000 Hz means you’ll miss out on the low end somewhat, that’s kind of expected with small speakers.

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One of the company’s engineers, Aurelien Bertini, explained that concrete is actually also more eco-friendly, as it can be recycled by being pounded into dust and recast. Sounds labor-intensive, but that’s how recycling is.

Bertini noted that concrete also can easily be customized — laser etched, dyed, etc. The magnetic grilles on the front are easily swapped out as well. They’re really not as heavy as they look, either: about 3 pounds. It’s mostly air in there.

More importantly, the device is designed to be repaired; you pop the grille off and there are only four screws holding the guts in; take it out, replace a piece, fit something back in place that fell off, that sort of thing.

You’ll want to repair yours, too, since Le Pavé Parisien is currently selling for $400, rather higher than the average Bluetooth speaker. If you simply must have them, they’re on sale now (following a successful recent crowdfunding campaign) and expected to ship next month.

Managed By Q, the office management platform that launched back in 2013, has today revealed that it raised an additional $25 million as a part of its Series C, led by existing investors RRE and Google Ventures, with participation from new investors DivCo West, Oxford Properties and others. The fresh capital brings the total round to $55 million.

Managed By Q launched as a all-encompassing platform for office management, offering IT support, supply inventory management, cleaning, and equipment repair. Since, the company has added a full-fledged marketplace, allowing office managers to choose vendors for various needs around the office.

But for 2019, the company is focused on tools and services.

“We want to spend 2019 putting even greater focus on the tools used by our vendors and workplace management teams, like task management tools,” said cofounder and CEO Dan Teran . “We want to build the first set of collaboration tools for the workplace team, the same way that designers use InVision and engineers use GitHub and salespeople use Salesforce. Something purposely built for the workplace team.”

Teran described tools that would allow for employee requests, work orders, task management, inventory management and budgeting to all live on the same platform.

The company hasn’t shared much by way of revenue or customer growth, but Teran told TechCrunch that the marketplace business has been doubling since it launched and is on track to continue on that trajectory. He also wrote in a company blog post that Managed by Q’s top five vendor partners have done over $1 million in business on the Managed By Q platform, and more than 30 partners will have earned over $100K on the platform in 2018.

The NY-based startup also brokered a partnership with Staples to provide office supplies to clients, and acquired Hivy and NVS to further fill out their office management suite of products.

Managed By Q has raised a total of $128.25 million, according to CrunchBase.

Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors is exploring strategic collaboration with Mobileye . Through this deal, GWM hopes to integrate Mobileye’s solutions into its vehicles. Starting with L0-L2+ within the next three to five years, the companies are also exploring opportunities for Mobileye’s Level 3 products.

The word comes at CES 2019 where Intel-owned Mobileye has a big presence alongside a large number of automotive technology companies.

GWM’s domestic market offers unique challenges for self-driving technology. Mobileye’s L0-L2 feature set focuses on driver safety and includes forward-collision warning, automatic emergency breaking and lane assist. Its L2+ is a bit more complex and features driver assist features that utilize Mobileye’s road mapping data, adaptive cruise control.

Initially the auto maker plans to build-in L0-L2+ technologies within domestic vehicles in the next three to five years. Eventually, though, GWM sees building some of the systems into vehicles headed for international markets.

Rather than just focus on Facebook’s problems like his 2018 challenge, this year Mark Zuckerberg wants to give transparency to his deliberations and invite the views of others. Today he announced his 2019 challenge will be “to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society — the opportunities, the challenges, the hopes, and the anxieties.” He plans to hold the talks with different leaders, experts, and community members in a variety of formats and venues, though they’ll all be publicly viewable from his Facebook and Instagram accounts or traditional media.

This isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has held a series of public talks. He ran community Q&A sessions in 2014 and 2015 to take questions directly from his users. The idea for Facebook Reactions for expressing emotions beyond “Likes” first emerged during those talks.

From his initial framing of the 2019 challenge, though, it already sounds like Zuckerberg sees more Facebook as the answer to many of the issues facing society. He asks “There are so many big questions about the world we want to live in and technology’s place in it. Do we want technology to keep giving more people a voice, or will traditional gatekeepers control what ideas can be expressed? Should we decentralize authority through encryption or other means to put more power in people’s hands? In a world where many physical communities are weakening, what role can the internet play in strengthening our social fabric?”

The implied answers there are “people should have a voice through Facebook”, “people should use Facebook’s encrypted chat app WhatsApp”, and “people should collaborate through Facebook Groups”. Hopefully the talks will also address how too much social media can impact polarization, self-image, and focus.

[Update: Zuckerberg asked me in the comments of his posts for format suggestions. My ideas include a formal debate between him and a civil but pointed critic. An independent moderator asking him questions with no pre-brief and/or selecting questions from public submissions. A talk where he’s challenged to never say the word “Facebook” while discussing larger issues facing society & technology. A mythbusting talk where he addresses the biggest Facebook conspiracy theories. An open discussion between him and Jack Dorsey. A referendum where he asks or is asked questions where the public can select from multiple choice answers, with him then discussing the publicly visible tallies.]

It nice that one of the de facto leaders of the world will shed more light on his thoughts. But given Zuckerberg is prone to sticking to his talking points, the public would benefit from talks held by moderators who don’t give the CEO all the questions ahead of time.

Hearing Zuckerberg’s candid thoughts on the inherent trade-offs of “bringing the world closer together” or “making the world more open and connected” could help users determine whose interests he has at heart.

Zuckerberg’s past challenges have been:

2009 – Wear a neck tie every day

2010 – Learn Mandarin Chinese

2011 – Only eat animals he killed himself

2012 – Write code every day

2013 – Meet a new person who isn’t a Facebook employee every day

2014 – Write a thank-you note every day

2015 – Read a new book every two weeks

2016 – Build an artificial intelligence home assistant like Iron Man’s Jarvis

2017 – Visit all 50 states he hadn’t already to meet and talk to people

2018 – Fix Facebook’s problems

Google made a flurry of announcements at CES this week, many of them coming rapid fire this morning.

Don’t have time to dig through it all? That’s ok. Here’s the condensed version:

• Google says that Assistant, its voice-powered AI, will be on 1 billion devices around the world by the end of this month
• Meanwhile, Google is also rolling out an update today that brings Google Assistant into Google Maps on both iOS and Android. It’s a bit more powerful on the latter as Google has more flexibility on their own platform, but it’s a very useful addition on both.
• Google says that Assistant will soon be able to control Sonos speakers. They’ve been promising that for over a year now, but it should be coming sooner than later. It’ll land on Sonos speakers with built-in mics first (Sonos One and Sonos Beam) but you’ll also be able to use Google Home devices to control mic-lacking Sonos speakers (like the Play:one or many of the older speakers) down the road.
• 2019 Samsung TVs will get Google Assistant compatibility later this year. If you have a Google Home or something similar, you’ll be able to link it up with your Samsung TV, allowing you to turn it on/off, adjust the volume, change the channel, and switch inputs with your voice.
• Dish is adding Google Assistant to its Hopper set-top boxes, allowing you to speak to Assistant through your Dish voice remote.
• Google Assistant will soon be able to check you into flights (United only at first, with other airlines on the way) when you say “Hey Google, check into my flight”. It can also now book hotels for you.
• Lenovo is building an $80 Google Assistant-powered smart clock meant for your night stand.
• Assistant’s new “Interpreter Mode” can translate conversations on the fly in 27 different languages.
• Google is previewing a new initiative called Assistant Connect, allowing manufacturers to make simple devices that tap your existing Google Home gear to do any required heavy lifting. Their example is an e-ink display that can show weather/calendar information — it doesn’t actually connect to the Internet by itself but has a connected Google Home handle it and pass that info on to the display.
• Google worked with both Anker and JBL to build accessories that pop into your car’s 12v outlet (that thing once known as the cigarette lighter, back when that seemed like a totally normal and not super weird thing) and make Assistant work a bit better in the car. Both can connect over either Bluetooth or AUX. They’ve got built-in echo/noise cancellation tuned for road noise, and are built to let you use Assistant without having to unlock your phone.

As you can probably tell, Google went all in on Assistant at CES this year; effectively every single one of their news items has to do with Assistant in one way or another. They built a two story building right outside the convention center, entirely dedicated to demonstrating Assistant. Google has made it pretty clear at this point that it sees Assistant as the next evolution of Google searches, so expect Assistant to play a role in almost everything consumer-facing the company does moving forward.

Muse, the maker of a meditation headband, today unveiled its latest product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The sleep meditation headband, dubbed the Softband, is designed to help people meditate as they fall asleep.

The idea is to put it on before you go to bed, play a meditation and then fall asleep as normal. Thanks to Muse’s acquisition of Meditation Studio, Muse now has an app partnership with Amazon Alexa that will enable Softband owners to play a meditation via Alexa as they fall asleep. For those without an Alexa-enabled device, Muse recommends having a speaker nearby so you don’t have to fall asleep with headphones on, Muse Director of Brand Marketing Nadia Kumentas told TechCrunch on the showroom floor.

In the morning, you can pop open the app to see how you slept. Over time, you can see improvements and changes in your sleep behavior. Down the road, Muse will likely use this Softband in other use cases, Muse VP of Product Management Alec Singleton told TechCrunch.

“The Softband is exciting because of the new use cases it opens up,” Singleton said. “You can fit it under a helmet or wear it to yoga.”

But for now, Muse is focused on the sleep use case. The Softband, for example, will be able to tell when you’ve fallen asleep and will then turn itself off. Singleton said he expects the Softband to launch sometime in Q4 of this year at a price point that is comparable to what the Muse 2 costs ($249).

Muse also recently announced voice coaching, guided meditations and biosignal feedback to its app as part of its software as a service offering. Later this month, Muse headband owners will be able to subscribe to in-app content focused on stress management, work, travel and relaxation. Phase two of this is to provide intelligent voice feedback that will chime in if it senses you’re drifting off.

This is Muse’s third headband, but its first soft headband. The first came out back in 2014 and the second, the Muse 2, was released just last year in October to offer real-time feedback about your mind, body, heart and breath.

Starting in the next few days, the Google Assistant on Android and iOS will be able to check you in to your flights. For now, you’ll only be able to use this feature for domestic flights on United Airlines, though, but the promise is to expand this to other airlines over time. To give this a try, you just say “Hey Google, check in to my flight” and off you go, ready to enjoy your stroopwafel once you step on board.

The Assistant will walk you through the check-in process, so it’s not all 100 percent automatic, but it still looks like a good user experience overall. If you’re all about being in control, changing your seats and checking the status of your upgrades, though, chances are you’ll still want to stick with the airline’s own app.In addition to now being able to check you in to your flights, the Assistant can now also book hotels for you. To do this, Google has partnered with Choice Hotels, AccorHotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, Priceline, Mirai and Travelclick. To do that, you already need to know where you want to stay and which hotel you want to book, so I’m never quite sure how useful a feature like this really is in day-to-day life. If you’re regularly staying at the same hotel on every trip, though, and maybe don’t care to shop around, then I guess this could save you a few clicks.

Lenovo knows a good smart assistant when it sees one. The company was one of the first to team with Google on a third-party smart display, and now it’s getting in on the ground floor for Alexa tablets.

The company just announced two devices — the Smart Tab M10 and P10. Both are 10.1-inch tablets that are among the first non-Amazon Fire tablets to sport the smart assistant. The devices ship with the company’s new Smart Dock, which toggles the slates into Show Mode, so they can effectively double as Echo Shows while charging. The dock/stand has three-watt speakers and three built-in microphones listening for Alexa commands. Lenovo’s positioning this as a kind of travel Echo Show, which is an interesting take on the category. The dock itself isn’t small, but the whole setup is certainly more portable than attempting to slip a smart speaker in your bag.

I’m not sure how much of a demand there is for such a thing, but I know at least one TechCrunch staffer who goes through smart speaker withdrawals when he’s on the road, so maybe there’s something to be said for it, after all.

As for the tablets themselves, the primary difference between the two is design language. The P10 is the slicker, thinner and lighter of the two models. It also sports more RAM (4GB), more storage (up to 64GB) and a beefy 7,000mAh battery. At $300, it’s also a full $100 more than the M10.

Both will be arriving this month.

TV provider Dish is more tightly integrating its Hopper line of receivers with Google Assistant by integrating the smart assistant directly into its set-top boxes. The company was already working with Google on a voice-controlled experience, having announced a year ago at CES that it would allow customers to control their Dish TV experience using Google Assistant.

However, in that case, Dish customers had to first pair their Hopper devices with an existing Google Assistant device in their home. This new development, announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is integrating the Google Assistant technology directly into the Hopper hardware itself.

That means Dish subscribers will be able to use their Dish voice remote to talk to Google Assistant in order to control their Dish TV. They can also search for TV content by channel, title, actor or genre.

Dish TV viewers will be able to do other things with Google Assistant, too — like check the weather, get news updates, display photos and control their other connected devices around the home.The new feature, the company hopes, will make Dish’s TV service more compelling in a day and age where many consumers are cutting the cord with pay TV and turning to streaming media devices like Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV and Roku — all of which now have their own voice control and voice search capabilities.

Dish isn’t only working with Google for voice control. In fact, it was one of the first to leverage Amazon Alexa for hands-free voice control of its Hopper and Wally receivers back in 2017. However, the Alexa integration was limited to pairing the Dish receiver with Alexa through an Alexa skill.

If you like the idea of Amazon’s Echo Spot — that is, a tiny voice-powered assistant on your nightstand, complete with a full-color display — but are more into Google Assistant than Alexa, your options have thus far been a bit limited.

You could put your phone on a dock, but that’s not quite the same. There’s Google Home Hub, but it’s a bit big for a nightstand with limited space.

With that in mind, Lenovo is building Smart Clock — an $80 Google Assistant-powered device built for the bedside.

It’s got a four-inch 480×800 touchscreen on the face, which can show stuff like the weather when it’s not acting as a clock. If you sync it up with your Google Calendar, it’ll also try to give you a heads up when you need to shift your normal alarm wake-up time. It’s got one small built-in speaker for tunes, and a rear USB port for charging other devices. They wrapped the whole thing in a soft grey fabric, which in addition to making it fit right in with any Google Home devices you might have, looks pretty dang snazzy for an $80 device. And with Google Assistant at the core, of course, it can handle everything you might otherwise use something like Google Home for — voice-powered automation, controlling your TV, etc.

Unlike the Echo Spot, Lenovo’s clock has no built-in camera — which, given that it’s meant to live in the bedroom, is probably a fine decision.

Google says this one should ship sometime this spring.