TechFirst with John Koetsier

Smartphone shipments dropped just 1.3% in Q3 according to a report from IDC, hitting 353.6 million: more than expected given the Covid-19 pandemic. Samsung was the largest smartphone manufacturer with shipment of 80.4 million phones. The biggest winner, however, was Xiaomi with a massive 42% growth. But its quick acceleration might be at risk.

Apple’s beta software program provides pre-release software for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV before broad public releases to everyone. It’s for greedy, impatient people like me who want new functionality before anyone else, and and are willing to put up with a few bugs here and there. Right now there’s a lot of “here and there” going on. For the last few days, Apple’s beta software program has been notifying my iPhone that there’s a new update for iOS 14. But there actually is no such update ...

File this one in the didn’t-expect-that department. TikTok parent company ByteDance has launched a smart desk lamp for school kids in China. The Dali Smart Work Lamp is intended to provide a “better experience for children” doing homework with better illumination ... and constant surveillance.  (The “constant surveillance” part is not in the press release.) The Forbes story for this episode is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/29/tiktok-owner-bytedance-selling-smart-lamp-with-camera-for-school-kids/

Imagine being able to get a driver's license, pay your taxes, get a fishing license all online. And: anything you want to do with your government, you can do online. That's what the state of Oklahoma is currently doing. I chat with Matt Pinnell, OK's lieutenant governor, about how.

Can AI combine data from hundreds or thousands of smartphones simultaneously to make great videos? IMINT algorithms are in 100s of millions of devices globally from smartphone manufacturers like Huawei, Vivo, Opportunity, Sharp, Motorola, Asus, and more.  Now the company is working on a collaborative video system that will auto-create movies from the best clips of hundreds or even thousands of people. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier we're chatting with Johan Svensson, CTO of IMINT

It’s the ultimate Covid product: fast, low-latency internet anywhere on the planet for just $99 per month, plus a $500 up-front payment to get the connection kit.  As long as you’re OK with occasional blackouts. Elon Musk's Starlink is finally soft-launching in an extended public beta. See the story on Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/27/starlinks-internet-anywhere-via-spacex-satellite-99month/

Facebook is launching a cloud gaming service to compete with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Stream, and all the other cloud gaming services.  In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with head of Facebook Gaming Vivek Sharma about what makes Facebook's cloud gaming service unique and, in his opinion, better than other options.

Apple’s iOS 14 is probably the most privacy-safe mobile operating system on the planet. But a major part of the planned functionality was delayed until 2021. At the time, Apple said the reason was that mobile developers weren’t ready yet. As it turns out, that might not be true. And Apple has now admitted that its own advertising attribution software has two major bugs. The Forbes story for this episode is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/24/apples-privacy-safe-mobile-attribution-solution-is-buggy-core-functions-missing-from-skadnetwork/

Apple has extended Apple TV+ for free for three more months for customers who bought an Apple product and received their first year free. The good thing is: now there’s actually content worth watching on the service. “We’re giving you extra time to discover the latest Apple Originals and catch up on shows returning for a second season,” my email from Apple says. “You don’t have to do anything — just keep watching for free until February 2021.” I watched almost nothing on Apple TV in the first few months of free service. But that changed recently ... The Forbes story for this is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/23/apple-extends-free-apple-tv-3-more-months-and-now-theres-actually-stuff-to-watch/

This week the U.S. government filed suit against Google. Smart move, or just politics? And, which member of big tech -- Amazon, Facebook, Apple -- is next? Google is a behemoth. It owns search in English and many other languages and, with Facebook, dominates digital advertising. But is it a monopoly? And should the government have filed antitrust charges? To dive into the story, we’re chatting with Greg Sterling, VP of insights at Uberall. He's a former lawyer and journalist.