The Surface Price is Right

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The Surface Price is Right
Number 3339
Broadcast Date AUGUST 3, 2018
Episode Length 34:02
Hosts Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane
Guests Robb Dunewood, Len Peralta

Microsoft’s Surface Go has been getting mixed reviews from the press. How does it stack up to the competition and what does this mean for the increasingly crowded creative tablet market?

Guest

Quick Hits

Google Maps now shares your battery life when you share your location with someone. Android Police discovered hints of this feature in the Google Maps beta earlier this year and it now seems to be widely available.
Blade is expanding its Shadow cloud-based PC gaming service to 18 states in the eastern US. For $35 a month, Shadow gives access to a powerful gaming PC in the cloud that can be played with low latency from almost any devices with an internet connection. Blade is also launching an app called Shadow Beyond for Android and iOS that lets you launch right into games without needing to navigate the Windows OS.
Huawei raised its forecast for 2018 smartphone shipments to 200 million and believes it can become the world's top shipper of smartphones by the end of next year. Huawei passed Apple to become number 2 to Samsung this last quarter.
The US FCC approved new rules that will let companies access utility poles faster, increasing speed and reducing cost of rolling out new service. The rules, called One Touch Make Ready, let companies attach wires to poles without having to wait for other companies to move their wires. The rules might also help wireless carriers upgrading equipment to 5G. The new rules apply only to privately-owned poles in the 30 states that follow federal guidelines. They also only apply to telecommunications and TV service, not internet as internet is no longer classified as a common carrier.

Top Stories

Epic Games is making its Android version of Fortnite Battle Royale available from its website, NOT through the Google Play store. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told TechCrunch "We believe gamers will benefit from competition among software sources on Android." Google also keeps 30% of all in-app purchases for games distributed through its store. The Android launch is planned for sometime this summer.
A report in the journal njp Digital Medicine describes a therapy for autism using Google Glass. Facial recognition notifies the wearer what emotion it detects on faces in view. 12 of 14 children with autism in the study showed more eye contact though the study did not have a control group. Further study with more participants and a control group are now indicated. Engadget notes that a group at MIT had a similar proposal for using a watch to monitor audio and determine a speaker's emotional state. A startup called Mightier has a gaming platform to help children regulate emotions and Samsung has an app to help children with autism improve communication.
More than 63% of people who accessed a map on a smartphone or tablet in May 2018 used Google Maps, versus 19.4% for Alibaba’s maps and 5.5% for Apple Maps, according to comScore. Google says it creates its maps through third-party data, public sources, satellites and users. But the New York Times has a story that implies at least in some cities, there's motivation behind unpopular name changes- in San Francisco a neighborhood recently renamed the East Cut is tied to a nonprofit group that paid $68,000 to a “brand experience design company” to rebrand the district... and one of the East Cut nonprofit’s board members is a Google employee.
Verizon announced it is the exclusive carrier fo the $480 6-inch Moto Z3. It will become the first phone able to upgrade to 5G, when a 5G Moto Mod with the Qualcomm X50 Modem inside launches in 2019. Verizon plans to have 5G available in four US cities by the end of the year.
A new Alexa skill called “Away Mode” attempts to make it seem like you're home by playing long audio tracks that sound like real conversations. Away Mode will play one of seven audio tracks penned by comedy writers from SNL, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and UCB. The skill was created by Hippo Insurance, which says the point is to turn the volume up and leave your apartment, knowing that any potential burglar will be scared off by “thinking that someone is still at home who is absolutely insufferable.”

Discussion

Mailbag

coming from an ex-pat in the UK regarding how MoviePass has 'challenged and disrupted the movie industry'...we've had cinema-backed membership plans (Cineworld Unlimited and Odeon Limitless) for around a decade or so at this point. (I'm aware Tom mentioned a similar scheme AMC brought from Germany).
What factors prevented US chains from adopting this model earlier? Movie pass felt like a weird (but technologically interesting) hack to a problem that cinemas around the world already addressed.
Sent by KV


And regarding the open RISC-V chip in India called Shakti, Mohan wanted us to know that Shakti means strength in many of Indian dialects.
Sent by Mohan

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Preceded by:
"Google Glass grew up and got a job" 		The Surface Price is Right
 Followed by:
"As Android as Pie"
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