Decode the Week ≠ Audio and video Technology Weekly
Credit: Si Ping
/News Briefing.
Apple and Amazon announced their lossless sound quality service on the same day
Apple announced the introduction of lossless sound quality to Apple Music in June as a free upgrade. The upgrade will also include support for Dolby Atmos and lossless audio files. The Android version will support lossless, but dolby Atmos will not be supported at launch. On Apple devices, the AirPods Pro or AirPods Max don’t support lossless sound quality, even in wired listening mode. It also doesn’t work on HomePod devices.
The same day, Amazon announced its own lossless music streaming service, Amazon Music HD, which will also offer a free upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited customers.
Sources: Apple&Amazon
About Google I/O
Last week, Google shared a series of announcements at its virtual I/O developer conference, including next steps for Android 12, a new way to collaborate on documents, and an edgy 3D video phone accessory.
— – “Material You” — –
Now, when an Android 12 user sets up a new wallpaper, the system can automatically create a custom color palette for the Android theme, including primary and complementary colors. This is widely used in operating systems, including quick Settings under notification shadows, lock screen buttons, gadgets, and more. Google calls it “Material You,” which sounds a little silly, but it gets the point across. Phones can really start to feel like another physical version of you.
Statistics show that Android now powers 3 billion phones worldwide, up from 2.5 billion in May 2019. That figure includes 250 million tablets last year.
The Android 12 update also includes support for foldable screens.
— Android TV monthly live 80 million —
Google announced that Android TV has reached 80 million monthly active devices, including Google, Roku, and Amazon *(the latter two have around 50 million monthly active users)*. In addition, Android TV also adds a remote control for your phone.
— New generation of customized AI chip —
Google does a lot of machine learning — a lot. As a result, they have been working to build better and more efficient computing hardware to handle the massive processing load these AI systems impose. TPUv4 is the latest AI chip — twice as fast as the old one — and will soon be packaged into 4,096 pods.
— Google and Self-driving —
Google is working with BMW and other companies to enable Android smartphones to unlock and start vehicles with support from Ultra-broadband technology *(UWB)*. It also makes it easier for developers to bring Android apps to the car, as they can now create an app that supports both the Android operating system and Android Auto.
— Google and AR –
Google says there are 850 million ARCore-compatible devices on the market today. It also adds raw depth and record/playback apis to ARCore to help make a more immersive experience possible.
— Google and Flutter — –
Google’s cross-platform UI toolkit for developing mobile and desktop apps now supports 200K Play Store apps, including wechat, ByteDance, BMW, Grab and Didi. The new Version of Flutter 2.2 adds reliability, performance improvements, IAPs payment plug-ins and processes for bringing Flutter applications into Windows, macOS and Linux.
Pic Credit/Sources: Google
Snap’s AR war
Snap has always positioned itself as a “camera company,” but over the past few years, it’s become clear that they’re betting their growth trajectory on becoming an AR company when the time is right.
Last week, they showed off a clunky, next-generation AR glasses with a dual AR display. Even though they only have a 30 minute battery life and are not mass-market consumer products… . But they mark Snap’s ambitions that go far beyond chat and photo messaging.
That’s not to say they haven’t had more ambitions in these verticals in recent months.
The company’s shares are still well below their all-time high hit in February and have fallen about 20 per cent since then, but ** Snap’s market value is three times what it was at this time last year — more than $85bn **. After years of stagnant growth that made it the laughingstock of tech stocks, the company has turned a profit as it continues to find more revenue and users for its platform.
But even if the company’s stock shot up on the AR eyewear design Revelations, there are reasons to be wary. Even as Apple’s market capitalization nears $100 billion, there are concerns about whether the effort to compete with Apple and Facebook as a hardware player in this space is too daunting for a second-tier tech giant.
Apple and Facebook have thousands of employees working on AR/VR hardware, and Facebook has publicly invested billions of dollars in AR/VR hardware. Many tech executives have hailed AR as the clear successor to mobile and an opportunity worth fighting for, but it’s also an obvious risk for Snap that they’ll have to take on more if they want to find a platform opportunity in this space that’s bigger than it is.
Sources: TechCrunch
Pinterest has launched a video-first version of Pinterest Stories
Pinterest has launched Idea Pins, a video-first version of its Story Pins feature aimed at creators. Pinterest allows creators to post 60-second videos, with Pins Posting a total of 20 pages at a time. They can also provide detailed pages with stickers, music and more information, such as recipe ingredients or project instructions.
Sources: Pinterest
/ Reading Spark.
Read this Week — Redefining the Company — How Google Operates
[America] Eric Schmidt
* To create an environment for meritocracy, we must create a culture that emphasizes questioning. ** If employees have doubts about an issue, they must raise their concerns. If employees’ reticence allowed less-than-ideal ideas to prevail, those employees are also to blame. From experience, most creative elites have strong personalities and can’t keep their ideas to themselves. A culture that sees doubt as a personal obligation gives them an outlet for free expression.
** If you’re working your butt off and not having fun, there’s a problem. ** s vision of future success can be exciting, but much of the fun comes from laughter and humor among colleagues.
As Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, wrote in Winning, “If you can’t communicate your goals constantly and reinforce them with rewards, your vision isn’t worth as much as the paper it’s printed on.”
“Your title makes you a manager, but it’s your employees who make you a leader,” says Debbie Biondollo, apple’s former head of HUMAN resources.
Most companies try to create “happiness”. For example, this Friday we have our annual company picnic, holiday party or staff outing. We have fun music, fun awards, and fun contests to make people laugh. We had fun face painting, fun clowns and fortunetellers, and fun snacks. Everyone has to be there and everyone has to have fun! However, such activities have a fatal flaw, that is, they do not make people really “happy”.
Matt Katz, a senior Google engineer, recalls how he often watched Mr. Ulzholzer, the executive in charge of Google’s data-center infrastructure, pick up trash on his way through his office. The CEO collects stacks of newspapers at the front door, the founder wipes down the front desk… Similar phenomena abound in Silicon Valley. Through these actions, leaders embody the idea of equality: we are in this together, we are in this together. But in reality, they do it mostly out of love for the company.
— From Chapter: Chapter 1 Culture: Believe in your own slogan
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