The WWDC hangover is in full effect, with the last several days being light on news I’ve found interesting. But there are some things worth noting, like Meta closing the portal and Netflix thinking that mobile games will save it. That and a few more of the stories I’ve found interesting over the last few days.
Meta Stops Selling Faceook Portal to Consumers
Back before the company was called Meta, Facebook launched the Portal line. Facebook Portals were meant to be video calling devices that tied into Facebook Messenger. Facebook Portal has proven so successful that Facebook is going to stop selling it to consumers, and instead will “focus it on the enterprise” which is what every company says when they’re killing a product.
Maybe Portal would have taken off had it been branded differently, the Facebook name doesn’t have as positive a connotation as it once did.
Twitter Rolls Out Updated Ways to Report Tweets
Twitter has finally updated its reporting tools to report tweets. The new reporting tool now includes more specific categories like misinformation, more categories around online harassment, and spam.
These new tools are very welcome, and should have been rolled out months ago, but that is par for the course with Twitter. It should be fully rolled out on all platforms now.
Google Suspends Engineer Who Claims AI Tool is Sentient
I almost didn’t include this but the internet seems to want to talk about it quite a bit. Headlines were made when Google suspended an engineer that publicly said he believed the LaMDA AI tool is sentient.
LaMDA is a tool that Google announced last year that is meant to improve Google Assistant voice results. The idea is to make interactions with Google Assistant devices more conversational and natural. The engineer in question believes that a single interaction he had with a LaMDA test proves that the system is sentient. Most experts disagree with this assessment.
The engineer was not suspended for the statement, but specifically because he posted proprietary and confidential Google owned information publicly, which is a violation of his employment agreement.
To use an overused phrase, there is no there there.
Google and Mozilla Are Fighting Over Browser Ad Blocking Extensions
This one gets into he weeds very quickly, but at its core, Google and Mozilla are fighting over how effective ad blockers should be in web browsers. Google’s claim is that the current method in wide use, something called Web Request, is a security risk and needs to be removed from web standards. Mozilla disagrees, and believes that removing Web Request from internet standards will make ad blockers less effective, and there are demonstrated cases of bad ads also being a security risk.
As is always the case, Google is both right and wrong. Google makes almost all of its money off of web advertising, so it is incentivized to keep as much of that profit engine viable as possible. But the nature of Web Request does, in fact, have some security issues.
On the surface, Google has been taking steps to quell fears of advertising especially around targeted ads. Those efforts have been met with criticism, and the company has had to go back to the drawing board a couple times. It is a difficult line to walk for the company, and there may be no winning.
Netflix Thinks Games Will Save it, Will Launch 50 New Games in 2022
Netflix knows the reckoning is coming, with its prices being higher than the competition and its subscriber base flat, at best. In 2021 the company dipped its proverbial toes into the gaming space, releasing a few mobile games for Android and iOS that could only be played by logging into a Netflix account.
The company appears to be doubling down on this strategy, and will launch 50 new games by the end of the year. Clearly that is the big missing piece to the service.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/netflix-will-offer-nearly-50-games-by-end-of-2022/1100-6502789/
Adobe Makes Photoshop Web Version Free in Canada
Adobe’s web version of photoshop, a somewhat limited web based tool for photo editing, has required users to have a subscription to the company’s full Photoshop program to use. Adobe is now testing a new system where Photoshop on the web will be free to use, users just need to sign in with a free Adobe account. Future plans include adding new features that will need a paid subscription to access, but basic functionality will remain free.
This test is now live in Canada, and will likely roll out to other markets in the coming months.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/14/23162580/photoshop-web-free-freemium-version-adobe