Boston Dynamics unveiled a robot dog named Spot in September and now, according to CNN, a Massachusetts police department has put the dog through its paces.
The Massachusetts State Police deployed Spot alongside its bomb squad for 90 days to see how the robotic K9 would perform in a real-world scenario, using Spot on two different occasions.
“Massachusetts State Police have used robots to assist in responses to hazardous situations for many years, deploying them to examine suspicious items and to clear high-risk locations where armed suspects may be present,” Massachusetts State Police director of media communications Dave Procopio said in a statement to CNN. “As part of our continual emphasis on examining the application of new technologies to our mission, we recently completed a test program of the Boston Dynamics robot known as ‘Spot.’”
The ACLU has express concern about Spot and how it will be used, citing past examples of how dogs and technology have both been used to harm civil liberties. In spite of the concern, Boston Dynamics’ lease agreement specifically covers using Spot in dangerous situations, such as investigating a suspicious package without putting humans in harm’s way. In addition to police work, the company also envisions it being used in high-risk occupations, such as mining.
While police departments, military, mining and other high-risk industries often employ robots, few existing designs offer the speed, mobility and nimbleness of Spot, whose claim-to-fame is its near-doglike range of motion.
Blender is a “free and open source 3D creation suite.” Originally released in 1994 as an in-house application for a Dutch animation studio, Blender has gone on to become a staple in the animation community. The software is used extensively by NASA and has been part of projects such as Spider-Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Man in the High Castle.
Being open-source software, Blender relies on donations to support development, with both individuals and corporations donating to the effort. Nvidia has now become the latest corporation to commit to the highest donation level, contributing at least €120,000 a year. This makes them the second company, along with Epic, to achieve “Patron” level support.
“NVIDIA joined the Blender Foundation Development Fund at Patron level. This will enable two more developers to work on core Blender development and to keep NVIDIA’s GPU technology well supported for our users. Thanks NVIDIA for the trust in our work! https://fund.blender.org #b3d”
Continued support of open-source software, especially such a well-known and widely used package as Blender, is a good thing for everyone involved.
Those who have been around tech for more than a decade remember the “good old days” when Microsoft was ruthlessly protective of its intellectual property, its platforms, its ecosystem. In fact, it was so protective that it was eventually sued by the U.S. Government for monopolistic behavior.
Fast-forward to 2019 and how things have changed. At the Microsoft Surface event in New York City, the company announced the Surface Duo, a dual-screen phone with Android and the Google Play Store installed—that’s right, Android, not Windows.
Surface Duo
The device’s two screens are joined by a 360-degree hinge, allowing it to be closed with the screens protected, closed with a screen on the front and back, laid flat on a table, held like a book and virtually every other angle in-between. Apps can be run on the two screens simultaneously, with data shared between the two via drag-and-drop.
In the demo video, the phone is remarkably thin, especially compared to other folding phones, although some might be put off by the amount of space used by the bevels. The width of the phone is larger than many popular phones on the market, and puts the device squarely in “phablet” territory. This could be a positive or a negative, depending on if a person prioritizes screen real estate or easy, pants-pocket portability.
The announced release date is “Holiday 2020,” a long wait for customers excited to take it for a spin. Nonetheless, the phone could prove to be a hit, marrying the benefits of Microsoft and Google like no device yet has.
“We’re in rarefied atmosphere,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “We’re focused on delivering an incredible innovation roadmap across all three of our clouds. We look forward to sharing more about our forward-looking strategy at the analyst meeting at MAX. We do look forward to the FA meeting. That’s when we lay out the growth opportunities that are ahead of us. We talked last year about how we had a greater than a $100 billion addressable market opportunity.”
Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, discusses how the company’s incredible innovation is driving its growth and how Adobe Sensei AI is embedded into every one of their products. Narayen was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:
Every Enterprise Must Engage Digitally With Customers
We actually experienced growth across all three of our segments. When you look at Creative Cloud and the net new ARR that we got in that segment of the business, that was a record for a Q3. Many years after the introduction of the product Document Cloud had an exceedingly strong quarter and we’re seeing tremendous adoption of our paper to digital initiatives. On the Experience Cloud again 34 percent revenue growth.
Every single enterprise needs to understand how you can engage digitally with customers. I think what’s unique about Adobe is that every customer from a K-12 student to an individual freelancer all the way to the largest enterprises in the world, the breadth of our offerings and our customers is truly fueling this success.
It’s About Getting These Customers Young
We’ve always talked about the fact that instead of just a focus on STEM we love STEAM because the world without arts would be an exceedingly boring place. One of the things we actually did this quarter was introduce a new ambassador network in educational institutions. We’re targeting over a hundred colleges. These students are actually being the evangelists for explaining why creative needs to be part of the curricula. Getting that younger generation excited about expressing themselves we certainly believe that’s going to fuel our growth.
In addition to that, as we come up on MAX, which is the largest creativity conference in the world in November, I think what you’re going to see from our innovation roadmap across new areas like immersive content, what’s happening with gaming, what’s happening across devices that now have styluses, we announced a new product called Fresco for art and illustration, so the breadth of our products is amazing. It’s about getting these customers young and enabling them to tell their story.
Focused On Delivering Innovation Across All Three Of Our Clouds
What is really unique right now about our digital experience solutions is that we have the first mile. The first mile is content management, it’s the web infrastructure, it’s mobile applications that people use to engage with enterprises. We also have the last mile in commerce. That’s the Magento acquisition that we did a while ago which enables you to make every experience shoppable. Magento had a great quarter. We grew their bookings 40 percent year-over-year in Q3. When you talk about the rule of 40, we’re blowing that away when you think about our growth rates as well as our margin.
We do look forward to the FA meeting. That’s when we lay out the growth opportunities that are ahead of us. We talked last year about how we had a greater than a $100 billion addressable market opportunity. Were growing the top-line at 20 percent. Our Q4 targets show that revenue growth will be north of 20 percent with EPS growth accelerating even above that. We’re in rarefied atmosphere. We’re focused on delivering an incredible innovation roadmap across all three of our clouds. We look forward to sharing more about our forward-looking strategy at the analyst meeting at MAX.
The AI of Adobe Sensei Is A Fabric Of All Our Innovation
Our artificial intelligence framework is called Adobe Sensei and it’s embedded across every one of our products. It’s when you look at a piece of content and say, how did they do that? There’s probably an aspect of Adobe Sensei in that. We have hundreds of trillions of transactions that we’re processing on behalf of high enterprise customers and we can predict in real-time. Our Adobe Digital Index which talks about shopping patterns globally, that’s coming from Adobe Sensei. It’s a part and it’s a fabric of all of our innovation and we’re excited to unveil new innovation soon.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen Focused On Delivering Innovation
Apple held its much-anticipated “By Invitation Only” event today, with Tim Cook promising a “huge” morning of news and updates. Over the course of two hours, Apple delivered on the promise with updates to both hardware and software.
Apple Arcade
Apple Arcade was first out of the gate, with one of Apple highlighting the soon-to-be-released gaming platform. Apple has partnered with some of the world’s best game developers to deliver over 100 exclusive games on launch day, something no gaming service has ever done.
Rather than paying for each game individually, a subscription service will provide access to all the games in the new Arcade tab of the App Store. Users will also be able to access game guides and sneak peeks.
Unlimited access will cost $4.99 per month, with a one-month free trial, and will be available September 19 in over 150 countries.
Apple Arcade
Apple TV+
It’s no secret Apple has been working on disrupting the television market with their upcoming Apple TV+ service. Mr. Cook said Apple’s ‘mission is to bring the best original stories from the most creative minds in film and television.’
Trailers for Apple’s first three series in production have been viewed over 100 million times, with The Morning Show trailer being one of the most viewed trailers of all time.
Apple took the opportunity to introduce their latest show, See, starring Jason Momoa. The series is set hundreds of years in the future when virtually all of humanity has lost its sight. Apple enlisted the help of blind and low-sight cast, crew and consultants to help set an authentic tone for the series. If the audience’s reaction was any indication, Apple may well have another hit on their hands.
The platform’s first shows will be available on November 1 in over 100 countries, for $4.99 per month for a family subscription. In addition, anyone purchasing a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV will receive the first year for free.
Apple TV+
iPad
Switching gears to the iPad, Mr. Cook said Apple’s original goal for the iPad was to ‘set out to design something truly unique, something you could take with you, transforming how we work, live and play.’ After highlighting the existing iPad models, he turned the stage over to Apple Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller.
Mr. Schiller said the 9.7-inch iPad continues to be the most popular model, with 60% of first-time buyers opting for it. With the 7th generation of the
product, it was time for Apple to improve it with modern features and abilities.
The 7th generation iPad moves to the A10 Fusion chip, making it up to 2X faster than the current top-selling PC. The iPad moves to a 10.2-inch form factor, giving users slightly more screen real estate. The new model includes the Smart Connector found on the Pro models, allowing it to be paired with the Smart Keyboard, as well as support for the Apple Pencil.
Mr. Schiller briefly touched on some of the added functionality the upcoming iPadOS will bring, including improved multitasking, multiple app instances, more powerful Slide Over, SD card support and more.
The new iPad features an enclosure made from 100% recycled aluminum and starts at $329, or $299 for education customers.
iPad
Apple Watch
Before announcing updates to the Apple Watch, Mr. Cook introduced a video where several existing users described how the Apple Watch had saved their life or had a profound impact on their overall quality of life.
The announced Apple Watch Series 5 promises to build on that reputation with a number of new features. The biggest of these is an always-on display that no longer requires a wrist raise or tap to see the time or complications. Another big addition is a compass, similar to that on the iPhone.
Apple is also expanding the capabilities of the Apple Watch with various studies designed to monitor a user’s health and use that data to improve the overall experience. Initial studies include the Apple Hearing, Heart & Movement and Women’s Health Studies. Via the Apple Research app, users will be able to opt-in and control exactly what data is shared.
Despite the new features, the Series 5 maintains the same all-day, 18-hour battery life and will retail for $399 for the GPS model and $499 for cellular.
Apple Watch
iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max
The event’s last act was reserved for the unveiling of the new iPhone. The Apple rumor mill has been in overdrive in the months leading up to this event, but Apple still managed to spring a few surprises.
The new iPhone is split into three models: the base iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro and the biggest iPhone 11 Pro Max. Hopefully, Apple keeps this simple naming scheme for the iPhone 12, 13 and beyond, as it’s much easier and more logical than the X, XS, XR, and XS Max.
The iPhone 11 is clearly a replacement for the XR as Apple’s entry-level phone. Based on the specs and features, however, it’s a safe bet the base 11 will likely be the most popular model, much as the XR currently is.
The 11 sports the toughest glass on a smartphone for both the front and back, with aluminum making up the rest of the enclosure. It’s available in black, white, red, purple, yellow and green and features a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina HD LCD display.
The dual-camera system was front-and-center among the new phone’s features, with 12 megapixels Wide and Ultra-Wide lens. The Phone is powered by the newest A-series chip, the A13 Bionic, providing the fastest CPU and GPU performance on a smartphone. The iPhone 11 will have an hour longer battery life than the current champion, the XR.
The iPhone Pro and Pro Max models build on the same features as the 11, but with a Pro twist. The aluminum is upgraded to surgical-grade stainless steel available in midnight green, space gray, silver, and gold.
The camera adds a third lens for telephoto zoom and the display is a Super Retina XDR OLED in either 5.8 or 6.5-inch. Water-resistance is rated at a full four meters for up to 30 minutes, up from the two-meter rating of the base 11. Apple promises up to four more hours of battery with the 11 Pro and five hours more with the Pro Max. All versions of the iPhone 11 include improved sound, featuring Dolby Atmos.
Apple’s presentation included examples of professional photographers’ work with the iPhone, as well as the creators of FiLMiC Pro highlighting some of the game-changing filmmaking capabilities of the Pro and Pro Max’s camera system.
The iPhone 11 starts at $699, while the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max start at $999 and $1099 respectively. Apple is also continuing to sell the iPhone 8 for $449 and the XR for $599.
iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max
Wrapping Up
Apple promised a “huge” morning of announcements and, without a doubt, they delivered. Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ demonstrate Apple’s commitment to expanding their services, while the 7th generation iPad, Series 5 Apple Watch and iPhone 11 show they still have plenty to offer in the hard-ware department.
Apple “By Invitation Only” Event – September 10, 2019
“If it’s a streaming war we’d like to be an arms dealer,” says IAC CEO Joey Levin. “We want to send the product and services to people who are making video. Video is relevant not just to people building streaming services, which there are now endless amounts of that and endless amounts of capital, but also every small business and every event. Everywhere people interact they’re expecting video now. It used to be text, then it was images, and now it’s video.”
Joey Levin, CEO of IAC, discusses their position as the “arms dealer” in the streaming wars in an interview on CNBC at The Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference:
If It’s a Streaming War We’d Like To Be an Arms Dealer
If it’s a streaming war we’d like to be an arms dealer. We want to send the product and services to people who are making video. Video is relevant not just to people building streaming services, which there are now endless amounts of that and endless amounts of capital, but also every small business and every event. Everywhere people interact they’re expecting video now. It used to be text, then it was images, and now it’s video. People need the tools to make that and our goal is to provide them.
I’m thrilled (we pivoted away from being a platform for streaming) now that everyone’s jumping into that space. I think between the time we announced that we were going to get into the streaming wars and the time we backed out there was another several billion dollars within a few months that entered the category. We were not competing with weapons that size and thought we’d be better off being a service provider.
It’s Possible To Compete With Google But They Have To Play Fairly
I don’t know what the right answer is (regarding breaking up big tech companies such as Google and Facebook) but I do know that we need an answer. Regulations are very hard to get right. I think frequently regulations in areas like that end up helping the incumbents. Those companies have already built huge data stores and they know what to do with those. It’ll just make it harder for the next people that come in to gather the data they need to compete. I don’t know how the regulations would work. I’d love to see that happen. I’d love to see regulations allow for more competition and protect competition, but it’s hard to see how that’s going to work. I don’t think GDPR did that really and I don’t know what would. They may need other solutions.
I think it’s possible (to compete with Google) but they have to play fairly. They have a significant position in search and they have a significant position in other areas too and that’s where a lot of people start their behavior. If Google starts favoring its own products or continues favoring its own products that is not going to leave room for others. I think that’s not necessarily great for the country.
In Deciding To Take a Company Public We Take a Long-Term Perspective
We don’t think a lot about a particular market state when we’re taking a company publicly. We think about what’s right for the company at the time. Does the company need access to capital? Does the company need a currency? Could a company benefit in some way by being public and having a public currency? It’s kind of independent of what market we’re in at that moment (when we decide it’s the right) time to take a company public. Just because the market might be hot or valuations might be high doesn’t mean we need to hit that window because we take a much longer-term perspective.
The (recent IPOs) are all different and they all have their own story. There are fantastic companies going public. I think it’ll be good for investors and they have opportunities to invest in them. It’s better that their public in a lot of cases than being private where a limited number of people can invest in them.
We Now Match 100 Percent of Employee 401k Contributions
I think there are different answers for different businesses (regarding potential regulations that could shut down the gig economy). We have businesses that have gig economy workers, 1099 workers, and we have businesses that are very big on W2 workers. The question is are the employees or the people doing the work getting the benefits that they want and getting the benefits that they need? Many of them prefer to be independent contractors and many of them prefer some of the benefits of independent contractors. Others like BlueCrew, which is all W2 workers, want benefits and need the things that come with being a W2 worker. Each business has its own needs on that.
One of the other things that we’re doing at IAC right now that’s really important for our 8,000 employees is we just announced a big change to our 401k plan to address the income inequality gap, to get more people investing in the market, to get more people participating in the economy and in capitalism. We are now matching a hundred percent of people’s 401k contributions up to 10% of their salary which is I think relatively unheard of among our competitors and other companies. I’m hoping other people follow that.
If It’s a Streaming War We’d Like To Be an Arms Dealer, Says IAC CEO Joey Levin
“We have something brand-new we call the Commerce Page Designer,” says Mike Micucci, CommerceCloud CEO at Salesforce. “It allows you to create experiences with clicks not code. You can literally drag and drop things around on the page and just put them right where you want to. You don’t need to be a programmer or a data scientist to do it. Your marketers and your merchandisers can build those experiences super fast to respond to different market changes.”
You Have To Really Put the Customer Right At the Center
In today’s industry, it’s not just about showing up and having a pretty picture you have to really put the customer right at the center. When they are there experiencing your brand you’re not delivering just the premium experience but you’re personalizing it to them. It’s not just on the shopping site it’s everywhere they go, from how you engage with them on social all the way through on customer service.
Putting the customer at the center to deliver a premium, a personalized experience, that’s a differentiator today. That’s what the customers are expecting everywhere they go. That’s is the key.
Commerce Page Designer Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code
Our team has been working all year to get ready for Connections. We’ve got some great news that we’re going to showcase. First and foremost, we have something brand-new we call the Commerce Page Designer. It allows you to create experiences with clicks not code. You can literally drag and drop things around on the page and just put them right where you want to. You don’t need to be a programmer or a data scientist to do it. Your marketers and your merchandisers can build those experiences super fast to respond to different market changes. That’s one of the biggest things that we’re producing.
The second thing is we also have a lot of new tech for developers. We’re connecting Heroku Solution kit and Commerce together in a whole new way. With this new Heroku Solution Kit, which includes templates to help you build mobile apps, shopping apps, and service cloud apps. They are all right there in front of you so they developers can be super productive with this great environment with Heroku where you can manage and build apps.
Thirdly is MuleSoft. It takes on average about 39 different systems to pull off a commerce scenario. Those are back-end systems like ERP, your order system, and inventory. What we’ve done with MuleSoft is we made it a lot easier to connect commerce through MuleSoft to all those legacy systems through one unified layer. So today, we’re announcing this new MuleSoft For Commerce Cloud Accelerator so that developers have a whole set of preset of APIs so they can jump-start that process.
Those are three great innovations. One for all your marketing and merchandisers. Then there are two great innovations for the developers that make them much more productive. Our goal is to help you not only deliver premium experiences but do it really fast.
Einstein and AI Are Really Reshaping Commerce
So what is next on the horizon? First and foremost, we always listen to our customers tell us here are the things that they need to drive their business. But what you should be looking for is how Einstein and AI are really reshaping commerce. You’ll see that in how Einstein is not just doing product recommendations but reshaping the entire customer experience.
Einstein takes away of a lot of those things that you used to do manually, let’s say like visual search where you can shop by pictures, where Einstein will figure out, hey, what’s in that picture and make it really easy to add it to the cart. It can take a lot of the guesswork out of it and just really make the shopping experience delightful. So stay tuned for a lot more AI and a lot more Einstein.
https://youtu.be/Wpu7zVQTZ-Q
Salesforce Commerce Page Designer – Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code – Mike Micucci
“Fiverr is the everything store for digital services,” says Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman. “The way people usually find freelancers is they post on Facebook asking if someone knows a good graphics designer. What we’re doing is we’re making it a one-click experience. There’s no bidding, betting, negotiating. There’s browse, search, buy. It’s an Amazon experience to buy a digital service.”
Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, discusses today’s IPO and how Fiverr has become the Amazon for digital services in an interview on CNBC:
Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services
Fiverr connects freelancers with businesses of all sizes. Really, the uniqueness of the platform is that the experience of buying a digital service on Fiverr is very similar to shopping on Amazon. You browse, you search, you find something, you click order, and it’s done. Graphic design is one of our most popular services on the platform. Also popular are content marketing, videography, animation, music services, and marketing and advertising. Anything you can imagine.
It’s the everything store for digital services. The system helps you productize your offering. You can define what you’re offering, how much time it’s going to take you to deliver, and the asking price. All the buyers have to do is screen through the offerings, find something they like, click order and pay, and they are done.
It’s An Amazon Experience To Buy a Digital Product
In the categories in which we operate there is a volume of activity of $100 billion in the US alone. It’s still only a single digit percentage online. It’s a very old-school business. The way people usually find freelancers is they post on Facebook asking if someone knows a good graphics designer. What we’re doing is we’re making it a one-click experience. There’s no bidding, betting, negotiating. There’s browse, search, buy. It’s an Amazon experience to buy a digital service. Nobody has done it before. The average time to make an order on Fiverr is 15 minutes. this is unbeatable. It’s unmatched.
We take a take out of every transaction. It’s one of the industry-leading take rates of over 26 percent. If you look at the EBITDA margins, you see that they’re shrinking. The way we actually structured the business is that we continue to grow aggressively while shrinking our negative EBITDA. There is a clear path to profitability. We are operating in over 160 countries. Our growth is coming globally from the adoption of freelancing online.
Our Primary Competitor is Definitely the Offline Market
Our primary competitor is definitely the offline market. I don’t know if it’s 96 or 97 percent of the activity offline, but we don’t need to eat anyone’s lunch to grow. We just need to move offline activity to the online. The offline freelancing market is massive. we’ve estimated that market to be a hundred billion dollars in the US alone. Europe is 1.5 times bigger than the US. There are over 162 million freelancers between the EU and the US. The opportunity is massive and it’s just starting to come online. This is like 1995 for ecommerce. This is so exciting.
Fiverr doesn’t hire its freelancers. It’s just the market that connects freelancers with businesses that have their digital needs. The way the marketplace is structured is such where we don’t have any employee-employer relationships. We are not relying on freelancers. We’re just connecting that supply with a demand that comes forward. We’re the platform on top of which they actually conduct their transaction. We just provide the platform to make that happen. It is very different than Uber and Lyft.
Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services, Says Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman
In this age of shiny web applications and mobile computing, emails have sustained their supremacy over all the other channels. It is the communication tool that has worked seamlessly for all your prospects.
Email marketing is a dynamic, paradigm-shifting field with a rich scope of innovation. Through 2017 and 2018, it has fostered diverse trends like typography, gamification, dynamic content, CSS-based animations to name a few.
In 2019, something even more fascinating, where extraordinary stuff is likely to get mainstream, awaits email enthusiasts.
In the Infographic ‘Top Email Design Trends of 2019,’ exclusively provided to WebProNews by EmailMonks, you will get a sneak peek into what kind of email marketing designs lie ahead.
Click the Infographic below to enlarge and unleash the future of emails:
Adobe’s Scott Belsky says that augmented reality will be as big or bigger than the Web itself. “Augmented reality, to me, is the next major medium,” says Belsky. “I actually would go on the record saying that I think someday AR will be as big, if not bigger, than the Web because it will literally be everywhere.”
Scott Belsky was recently interviewed on CXOTalk with Michael Krigsman about AI and AR and how it will impact the customer experience (video below):
The Age of Artificial Intelligence
This is probably the most exciting part of my job is thinking about these future mediums. Everyone is going to have to take them into consideration. If those terms sounded new to any of your viewers, it’s a problem, and for a few reasons.
On the AI side, every company has a lot of data on its customers that they need to use to make the customer experience better. Customers are going to stop being forgiving of presumptuous defaults that don’t work for them, of questions that they should know the answer to already.
In the Age of AI, Customers Will Expect Personalization
Customers are going to expect a personalized experience because we’re in the age of AI. That starts with instrumenting your services and products to start collecting the right data. Then it means hiring a team that can understand and starts to extrapolate some lessons from that data. Then it also means designing products to take it into account, which is personalization.
It’s a real vector of the future. I think that companies are going to start competing on the data that they have to enable a better customer experience for their customers. I think that every company, especially big ones if they don’t start to leverage their understanding of their customers, they will be trampled by those that can. We can talk more about that.
Augmented Reality Will Be Bigger than the Web
Augmented reality, to me, is the next major medium. I actually would go on the record saying that I think someday AR will be as big, if not bigger, than the Web because it will literally be everywhere. It will be a layer on everything we see. We will walk down the street, and we will know who we know was everywhere and what their ratings were. Yelp will come alive to us, right? Directions will be transformed. There will be LinkedIn bubbles over everyone’s heads. You’ll have this amazing amount of knowledge and insight about everyone in every room you enter.
Then, if you take those glasses off or whatever you’re looking through, you’ll feel somewhat dumb. You’re like be like, “Oh, my goodness. I don’t know my connections to anyone around here. I don’t know. There’s nothing left for me here. There are no remnants from when I was here last and my old notes.” You’ll want to put it back on. That is this future world.
At Adobe, we think about the fact that that world will be very dry if it isn’t rich with creativity and content. That’s why we’re very focused on the future of augmented reality from the creative tooling and marketing analytics perspective.
Expectation That We Can Talk to Any App or Device
Let’s talk about Voice for a moment. I think we’re going to have an expectation that we can talk to any application or device that is in our lives and ask simple questions and get very, very quick answers. Look no further than anyone who has young kids. They can’t necessarily navigate to a song on Spotify on a phone or whatever, but they can ask for the song from Alexa, and they can use that all day. It’s very, very, very powerful. [There’s] a lot of design implications for voice interfaces as well, and that’s why these new mediums are super exciting, ripe with challenges, but everyone has to start thinking about them.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, recently discussed on CNBC about how Adobe is working to actually create a brand new industry focused on digital engagement and customer experience management. I thought this was interesting in that this makes Adobe a CRM company competing with the likes of Salesforce, rather than what most people think when they hear the name Adobe, a company providing creative, marketing and document solutions.
Much of this new focus will rely on their AI solution, platform Adobe Sensei, which you can read more about here.
Narayen’s expands on Adobe’s intent to be a CRM leader in the excerpts below:
We really believe that what’s happening is that every enterprise wants to in real time engage with customers. When you think about what CRM used to be, CRM was more about a record that was in a relational database. That is not as important as what you do with that customer information and how you make action out of it.
That’s where the Adobe and Microsoft partnership is so valuable because together with what they have done with Azure and the ability for people to process the data at the pace at which they want and what Adobe has done. We enable people to attract customers to your platform. We allow you to engage it. We think we’re actually creating a brand new category and industry which is all about digital engagement and customer experience management, far more critical than what a record might store.
We continue to think that content and data and how content and data come together is really where this magic happens. You’ve walked into a retail store you’re accessing an application on a mobile device and it’s all about what’s the right content that’s being delivered based on the intelligence.
I think it’s a dramatically different approach that Adobe has pioneered and I think it’s companies like Adobe and Microsoft and SAP who actually see this vision for what’s happening in the world.
Adobe has now integrated their artificial intelligence platform Adobe Sensei into Photoshop and most of their creative products. “Adobe Sensei is an AI and machine learning platform that deeply understands how our users work and delivers a lot of simple workflow that makes that magical moment happens in any of our applications,” noted Abhay Parasnis, CTO & EVP at Adobe. “What makes Sensei so unique is that Adobe is the only company in the industry that can marry art of content and creative expression and science of delight on a massive scale.”
“The key areas we focus on are content intelligence, computational creativity, and the experience which is related to understanding events related to how content is delivered,” commented Scott Prevost, VP Engineering of Adobe Sensei and Search in an Adobe explanation of the product.
“If I can go all the way from how I create content in the creative tool and then have the ability to personalize it at scale to Adobe Experience Cloud, then have the ability to measure it through analytics and feed the measurement back into the creative workflow, saying these designs work better, that actually is the holy grail in what customers tell us they want,” says Parasnis.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, recently commented on CNBC about how this is helping to improve the Adobe customer experience:
On the creativity side, everybody fears the blank page, so if AI can start to infer what people want to do in terms of using either Photoshop or one of our creative products and when you can speak to the computer and it understands and infers what you want to do and makes our products and tools more accessible, that’s a huge win. Then you can attract a tremendous amount of customers.
At the other end of the spectrum, when you have millions of customers hitting your website, the AI that we have on the Digital Experience Cloud being able to infer intelligence from the trillions of transactions and ensure that you get the right offer that was meant for you in real time, that’s something that humans cannot do.
Those are two really good examples at different ends of the spectrum of how AI enables our customers to do more with our technology.
Envato has grown its presence in North America, with the acquisition of one of the web’s fastest-growing digital mockup and templates tools, Placeit.
Purchased for an undisclosed amount, the Mexico-based company adds to Envato’s globally renowned creative community, providing a series of responsive mockups, smart design templates and maker tools for designers of all skill levels.
Headquartered in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and the country’s well regarded tech hub, Placeit has grown rapidly since its inception in 2012, with more than seven million templates sold and doubling in size in the last 12 months.
The company’s most recently recorded Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) was over $3M USD. Envato’s current subscription business Envato Elements has an ARR of $21M, and grew over 100% in the last year.
Placeit counts companies such as Google, Facebook and Oracle as among its more than 55,000 regular paying customers, with more than 87% of these customers coming from outside Mexico each month, reflecting the global footprint it has.
The platform currently allows users with no previous design experience to make everything from on-trend logos and branding kits for everything from restaurants to sporting clubs, through to t-shirt design templates, social media videos, high-resolution iPhone and apparel mockups and more.
Users can do all of this very simply from their browser, without the need to purchase and learn how to use specialist design and creative software.
Envato founder and CEO Collis Ta’eed said that the acquisition of Placeit was an exciting one.
“Placeit extends the Envato offering in a big way. We’ve made our mark in the world helping creative professionals get inspired, work faster, and level up what they do for clients.”“With Placeit we’re opening up Envato’s creative magic to absolutely anyone. Whether it’s an entrepreneur just getting started, a marketer working on their own, or just a pro user who doesn’t want the hassle of opening Photoshop – Placeit is just plain fun and simple to use.”
“My ‘aha’ moment with Placeit was sitting down with my kids to make a logo for their basketball team. Watching a seven year old make something that I, as a professional designer, liked was pretty special, and really solidified to me what an opportunity Placeit has to connect with a whole different design audience. Seeing something come to life that simply was not possible before is why I love working in the tech industry.” concluded Mr Ta’eed.
Placeit founder Navid Safabakhsh said he looking forward to the company becoming an integral part of Envato’s global creative community.
“The origin story for Placeit is very similar to the one Envato has; we came up with an online, smart solution to a very particular set of problems that many digital creatives face around the world today, anchored by hard-working local tech talent.”
“In building a series of easy-to-use and on-trend maker tools, we’ve seen first hand just how much we’ve been able to empower creatives of all skill levels around the globe to complete their projects faster, and with better outcomes. We think it’s a perfect match for Envato, one that builds on the strengths of both companies.”
The upgraded Placeit by Envato platform officially went live last week.
Google announced on Wednesday that it had updated the PageSpeed Insights tool, enabling it to see just how fast a particular page performs in the real world. Sourced from the Chrome User Experience Report, the real-world data is now available via the enhanced PageSpeed tool. It offers developers better recommendations as they strive to optimize page performance.
The loading speed of a page is a very important factor in clinching a deal. These days, everyone wants the page they are trying to view to load almost instantaneously. If it doesn’t, the prospective customer is not likely to wait for it to complete loading. After all, there are thousands of competitors out there eyeing the same potential customer. Simply put, a slow-loading page does not bode well for your sales conversion rate.
As such, Google tweaked the PageSpeed tool to reveal what visitors to your site are actually experiencing. Via the tool, you will be able to see two metrics which is based on the Chrome User Experiencer Report. These are First Contentful Paint (FCP), which is the instance when visitors see a visual response from the page they are viewing, and DOM Content Loaded (DCL), which is the point when the viewed page has parsed and loaded.
Google then rates your page as fast, slow or average based on the following rules:
“Fast: The median value of the metric is in the fastest third of all page loads.
Slow: The median value of the metric is in the slowest third of all page loads.
Average: The median value of the metric is in the middle third of all page loads.”
The new PageSpeed tool also comes with the Optimization Suggestions feature. This basically contains a list of best practices that may be applied to the page to increase its optimization score. If a page is already rated fast, the Optimization Suggestions is hidden, which means that the page has been optimized.
Google Chrome, the leading U.S. browser at the moment, is about to face some serious competition up ahead. Mozilla just unveiled an improved version of its browser called the Firefox Quantum touted to be drastically faster than its predecessor and offering browsing speeds said to even surpass that of Chrome.
During the late 2000’s, Mozilla Firefox had one of the fastest user growth among Internet browsers according to Forbes. Unfortunately, the browser’s growth lost steam and is now lagging behind rivals Google Chrome and Apple Safari. Chrome is currently leading the pack in the U.S. with a market share of 44.5 percent followed by Safari at 25.4 percent. Firefox, in the meantime, only managed to secure a 7.4 percent share.
Firefox Quantum—now in Beta!—is twice as fast as Firefox was just a year ago. https://t.co/fosfCaMyne
However, Mozilla is betting big that it just might be able to reclaim some its lost market share with the introduction of a souped-up browser, the Firefox Quantum. One of the most attractive features of the upcoming browser that just might earn it new followers is its browsing speed. Set to debut by November this year, Mozilla says that it is superfast – twice as fast than the current version and is even faster than the number 1 Chrome. And the best part is that, according to Mozilla, the Firefox Quantum uses 30 percent less RAM when compared to Chrome.
At the moment though, there is no third party data available yet to back up Mozilla’s claim. The claim is supported by data obtained using Mozilla’s own open-source benchmarking tool Speedometer 2.0.
But Mozilla insists it’s not just about speed. The upcoming Firefox Quantum will also come with an improved user interface which will ditch the curved tab design of the current browser. In addition, Quantum is said to be optimized to take advantage of modern high-res displays.
Quantum will also be able to differentiate tabs and can influence the download speeds to a certain degree. Tabs that are currently active will download faster than tabs running in the background.
Firefox Quantum will also incorporate features of Pocket, a popular news and article reader app which Mozilla acquired in February of this year. When users open new tabs, a list of trending pages currently being read by Pocket users will appear as suggestions.
While Mozilla has already set Firefox Quantum launch date this coming November 14, users can already use its beta version for Android, iOS, and desktop. The test version is available to enable users to discover bugs before it is released.
Google today announced the release of the Google Assistant SDK. The SDK will allow developers to include Google Assistant interactions in their hardware prototypes.
The Google Developers Blog says, “The Google Assistant SDK includes a gRPC API, a Python open source client that handles authentication and access to the API, samples and documentation. The SDK allows you to capture a spoken query, for example “what’s on my calendar”, pass that up to the Google Assistant service and receive an audio response. And while it’s ideal for prototyping on Raspberry Pi devices, it also adds support for many other platforms.
To get started, visit the Google Assistant SDK website for developers, download the SDK, and start building. In addition, Wayne Piekarski from our Developer Relations team has a video introducing the Google Assistant SDK, below.”
At F8, Facebook announced that it is opening up the Live API, which will let developers build the ability to stream to Facebook Live from any device.
As part of the announcement, which came from Mark Zuckerberg himself, a drone floated above the stage. It’s using the API to stream from the conference to Facebook Live as the event goes on.
Facebook has already announced a ton of new Facebook Live-related features over the past week, and as the streaming service becomes integrated with more and more apps and devices, these (particularly the discoverability features) will become significantly more important.
Kurt Wagner makes a great point in that the API could “help entice bigger media players to go live, those that are used to producing video with a little more production power than a smartphone can capture.”
Product manager Daniel Danker discusses the API in a blog post:
Publishers with verified pages can get started with the Live API via Publishing Tools or by contacting one of our Media Solutions partners. These partners have built video production, editing, and streaming products that publish directly to Facebook Live and bring live video to life with features like camera switching, instant replay, on-screen graphics and special effects.
Developers can learn how to integrate directly with Facebook Live using the Live API Documentation. The Go Live Dialog makes it particularly easy to get started. If you’re a developer and would like to integrate Facebook Live directly with your app or device, sign up to request access.
The API can be used to build video streams that mix multiple video and audio sources and special effects. These can include programmatic sources including games and screencasts.
The API can also be used in combination with Facebook’s Graph API to reflect viewer engagement in real time and create on-screen graphics that show poll results, analyze comments, or enable comment moderation.
Bing has teamed up with HackerRank on a new way to search code and see it run in a live coded editor within Bing’s search results.
Rather than looking through sites like Stackoverflow, Stackexchange, and blogs, you can search from Bing and save a great deal of time. At least that’s what they’re promising. Just search a query, hit enter, and get a solution along with the ability to edit the code in real time.
Bing Group Engineering Manager Marcelo De Barros and HackerRank CEO and co-founder Vivek Ravisankar wrote a joint blog post announcing the news (h/t: Search Engine Journal). They said:
It’s a typical night. You’re in the zone with a half-full Red Bull by your side. You’ve come a long way in learning a brand new programming language when—bam—you run into problem you’re not quite sure about. So, you do what any programmer would do in your situation: You search for the solution.
This is one of the most common productivity pitfalls for programmers today. If you want to improve on or learn a new algorithm, you search in engines and figure out which blue link to click. Then, you have to transfer all of this into your editor. You trial and error until you find the right solution. If only there was a way to search a function and immediately see the solution in one step.
This is the type of scenario they’re aiming to help with.
The functionality is live now C, C++, C#, Python, PHP, and Java are supported. Just go to Bing and search accordingly.
Google announced that its mobile adds now fully support Swift, the iOS programming language Apple launched in 2014 and open sourced last last year.
Google says it has seen an increase in requests from publishers to fully support Swift in the Google Mobile Ads SDK, and has responded by releasing example apps built in Swift, adding code snippets throughout its developer docs, and adding Swift API reference docs to its developer sites.
“The Google Mobile Ads SDK team is committed to supporting Swift, and we’ll continue to update our SDK, developer docs, and example apps to ensure we provide publishers with full support for the latest version of Swift,” says Tristan Emrich with Google Mobile Ads developer relations. “Whether you currently develop your iOS apps in Swift, or have plans to do so in the future, we hope the actions we’ve taken to support Swift in our SDK will help make your experience with Swift more enjoyable and your transition to Swift a whole lot easier.”
Emrich notes that Google’s GitHub repo now has Swift example apps for banners, interstitials, and native ads for AdMob and DFP. They’ve also added a Swift version to their API demo app.
“The API Demo app demonstrates features of the Google Mobile Ads SDK, such as new ways to customize ad requests, experiment with multiple ad sizes, and compare AdMob and DFP technologies, to help you improve the user experience and maximize ad revenue,” says Emrich.
They’ve also added Swift code snippets to the AdMob, DFP, and AdX developer docs and Swift API reference docs to the AdMob and DFP developer sites.
Fbtftp, Facebook’s implementation of a dynamic TFTP server framework, is now on GitHub. The offering lets you create custom TFTP servers and wrap your own logic into it.
The company currently uses fbtftp, and it’s deployed across its data centers. It was created by Facebook Engineering production engineer Angelo Failla at Facebook Ireland.
“We love to use existing open source software and to contribute upstream, but sometimes it’s just not enough at our scale. We ended up writing our own tftp framework and decided to open source it,” Faceobook says on GitHub. “fbtftp was born from the need of having an easy-to-configure and easy-to-expand TFTP server, that would work at large scale. The standard in.tftpd is a 20+ years old piece of software written in C that is very difficult to extend.”
Facebook uses it to stream static files from its http repositories, generate grub2 per-machine configuration dynamically, and publish per-server and per-connection stats to internal monitoring systems. They say the primary focus is flexibility and scalability rather than speed, but that it’s fast enough at its data center scale.
“It is well-suited for large installations where scalability and custom features are needed,” Facebook says.
Fbtftp is written in python3, and requires Linux or any system that supports epoll. The framework implements RFC 1350, RFC 2347, RFC 2348, and RFC 2349. More details here.
Square just announced the launch of Build with Square, which is a new set of APIs being made available to sellers and the developers they work with. There’s a Register API, which enables any iOS point of sale to be customized to process payments with Square, and an ecommerce API, which lets sellers use Square to process online payments on their own self-hosted sites.
A spokesperson for Square tells WebProNews, “With these new set of tools we’re helping sellers of all kinds join the Square ecosystem and run every part of their business in one place. Sellers can now identify what and when customers are purchasing online and in-store all in one place. Now no matter what you sell, or how you sell it, you can sell with Square.”
“Independent businesses have been poorly served by existing commerce solutions, which require them to laboriously piece together hardware, software, and payments services from many different vendors,” the company says in a blog post announcing the news. “From payments to point of sale, financing to payroll, we believe all sellers — big or small, online or offline — should be able to start, run, and grow their entire business with one cohesive system.”
With the Register API, developers can tell Square how much they want to charge a customer and “let Square Register to the heavy lifting” with just two API calls. Customers can pay like they would with any other Square merchant and get text, email, or printed receipts. The API supports all Square hardware, including Square Stand and the Square Contactless + Chip Reader.
Make an API request (see code here), and Square Register comes to the foreground and completes the payment. After that, it will call your app back with the result.
Square developer platform software engineer Jianliang Zhao discusses the ecommerce API and points to documentation here.
Jack Dorsey is pleased with it.
Finally! The new Square Payments API! Build online for apps or web, or offline for all Square hardware. https://t.co/hwiaooKAYc
“Now any developer can build solutions for their customers to take payments on a website using Square,” writes Zhao. “Whether you’re getting started selling online with Square’s Online Store; you’re growing through Square’s integrations with eCommerce platforms like Bigcommerce, Weebly, and Ecwid; or now, you’re building a custom website, any business can scale online with Square payments. What’s more, with our eCommerce API, Square takes the hassle out of PCI compliance without interfering with the design or look and feel of your website or re-directing customers off-site.”
He notes that Square’s JavaScript library uses transparent, dynamically styled iframes to accept sensitive cardholder info so this data never touches your web site or servers.
While only the two APIs were announced, it will be interesting to see what else Square enables developers to do in the future under the Build with Square banner.
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