Alibaba is a Fickle Genie

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Alibaba is a Fickle Genie
Number 2734
Broadcast Date APRIL 12, 2016
Episode Length 38:48
Hosts Tom Merritt
Guests Brian Brushwood

Alibaba spends $1 billion to move into Southeast Asian ecommerce, Brian Brushwood talks with Tom Merritt about doing business on Alibaba.

Guest

Headlines

Facebook announced “Agents on Messenger” a program for business to create chatbots for customer service, ecommerce and more. Chatbots can respond with structured messages that include links and buttons. Facebook also launched a Live video API that lets you broadcast to Facebook from any device. The company also revealed an open source VR camera called Surround 360. The 17-lens camera require almost no post-production work. Rather than selling it Facebook will open source the designs and video stitching-algorithms and post to Github. Parts are estimated to cost $30,000.
Facebook announced Facebook Profile expression Kit that lets developers feed videos recorded in their apps into profile pictures on Facebook. Launch partners include Instagram, Cinemagraph and MSQRD. Mevo (formerly Movi) is the first camera with integrated Facebook Live streaming. It also streams to livestream. Mevo ships in July for a hefty $399, although you can save $100 if you pre-order it now.
A few more F8 tidbits. The M platform is opened up as wit.ai for developers to take advantage of the machine learning there. Account Kit will let developers authenticate users with SMS or an email address that the user verifies. No Facebook account required. Indian Music Service Saavn has tested the service with 500,000 signups over two months.
HTC officially announced the HTC 10 phone. The 5.2-inch phone has a 64-bit Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 530 GPU. It has a microSD card slot, 2K resolution at 564 ppi. The 12-megapixel camera has 1.55 micron pixels, 4K video recording f/1.8 OIS. It also has a 3,000mAh battery and USB-C. HTC BoomSound has front speaker tweeter and bottom speakers as woofers. It weighs 161 grams. HTC also licensed Apple's airplay for official compatibility built in. Pre-orders start today for $699 for shipping in May.
Box announced a new option for its customers in Europe and Asia to store their data regionally. Called Box Zones, the new service will be available next month. Box uses services from Amazon and IBM to store customer data across Germany, Ireland, Singapore and Japan.
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Petya is ransomware that replaces your master boot record and encrypts the Master File Table then asks for payment in order to release it. Someone at the Twitter account Leostone has a tool that can unlock it. You’ll need to remove the drive and connect to an uninfected Windows PC, pull off some specific data and use a Web app to create a password. Fabian Wosar from security firm Emsisoft created a free tool that can do it for you.
Submitted by stevei0
Microsoft added a QR code to the Blue Screen of Death error screen in the latest preview version of Windows 10. It’s meant to help identify error codes and find support articles.
Submitted by jnamadan
Proposed legislation in New York would require drivers of vehicles involved in accidents to submit their cell phones for inspection. A textalyzer would then determine if the phone was in use prior to the crash. The legislation would prevent officers from extracting any data from the phone beyond just whether it was in use or not.
Oculus began updating customers who ordered its Rift VR headset with new delayed shipping dates thanks to a component shortage. My late April ship date is now 5/30/2016 - 6/9/2016. Orders made now show a shipping date in August according to the Verge. Oculus is waiving shipping fees for anyone who ordered before April 1.
Alibaba is investing $1 billion to take a controlling interest in southeast Asian ecommerce platform Lazada. Bloomberg notes Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma has a goal of getting half the company’s revenue from outside of China. Lazada operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
This week Lyft and Didi are launching the beta of their cross-platform ride sharing service that lets Chinese Didi users hail a Lyft classic or Lyft Plus ride in the US using the Didi app. Bilingual Chinese customer support that can translate between riders and driver can be accessed through App. The next step will be letting Lyft users do the same in China. This is part of an alliance between Didi, Lyft, Grab in SE Asia and Ola in India.
Google is beta testing accessibility software called "Voice Access" to allow users access core Android functions hands-free. 9to5 Google reports unlike other accessibility apps Voice Acces will overlay numbers on top of elements on a screen for more precise control in addition to voice commands like “open chrome” and “go home.”

Discussion

Pick of the Day

I was up late rocking my new-born baby daughter and did what every great parent should and turned on Netflix to pass the time. It's awesome algorithm found me a program that not only I enjoyed, but I thought would be a good pick for DTNS. I binge watched the entire 12 episodes which left me wanting more. It's hosted by a really charismatic guy who is up with his tech and street smarts who you should see about getting on the show. The show is Hacking the System hosted by Brian Brushwood. I think you would get along with him on the show really well with how he understands and can explain tech and other things. I'm so glad Netflix hooked me up with this amazing show that shows some goofy life hacks like making a taser from a disposable camera and more practical ones like dealing with salesman to get the best deal. For all who have a Netflix subscription I think it's worth a watch.

((how does it work for Brian to have the show on Netflix. Does he get a little kickback every time someone watches the show?))
Submitted by Andy

Messages

Tom,

My granddaughter and her family visited us last week. Her oldest turned four on Feb. 27. He has a book about the solar system and has been engrossed with it since before he turned two. I setup my Google Cardboard with the Titans of Space app using my Nexus 6P for my granddaughter to see. After a while, she put it on the four year old. He got all excited. He was looking all around, jumping up and down and calling out the things he was seeing. i.e. naming planets he was seeing and their moons. He looked down and said he could see the astronaut. Even with a the simple Google Cardboard implementation, it seems it can be a great teaching tool.
Sent by Bill Burlingame in Huntsville, AL


Whether or not companies are decentralized or hierarchical is not a question of one works and the other doesn't. Both can work, and I think of it the way I do myself versus other professors. We each teach in our own way, the best don't try to be something their not. Apple is top down because Steve Jobs was the commanding of a personality. They have yet to do anything brand new or as successful as the ipod, ipad, or iphone since his time running the company. It remains to be seen if Apple will ever do anything as revolutionary as those again. Mark Zuckerberg isn't like Steve Jobs, and so they are more decentralized. This works as long as the people being left alone are competent and do their jobs without the individual silos becoming competitive in a way that causes harm to the whole. There is a large body of literature on this sort of thing.
Sent by Brian Henry

YouTube

Links



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"Why People Won’t Shut Up About VR" 		Alibaba is a Fickle Genie
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"ADD = Amazon Dedicated Device"
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