Archives for June 30, 2019

The Osaka Track might help digital business — if it gets enough support.

It might become easier to shuttle data across borders in the future. A total of 24 countries have signed a statement supporting the Osaka Track, a plan from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that would create rules for a “free flow” of data while respecting privacy, copyright and security. The commitment is meant to foster digital businesses that might otherwise stumble over legal hurdles.

The signatories include major countries like the US, China and Russia. However, there are already concerns as to whether or not this will lead to concrete action. Some of the participants are highly protective of their country’s data, for various reasons. China and Russia, for instance, tend to insist on companies storing data locally both as a competitive tool and to help them crack down on political dissidents. The European Union, meanwhile, is concerned about privacy violations that can come with sharing info outside of member states.

Other G20 members, including India, Indonesia and South Africa, were also absent. India in particular has wanted to keep data at home to claim a competitive edge.

Osaka Track could still be helpful. It promises to frame negotiations over digital commerce at the World Trade Organization, where 78 countries intend to participate. However, it’s really just the start of a long, uncertain process — albeit a promising one.

It may rework the interface, among other improvements.

Apple’s News+ service might be in line for a shakeup not long after its debut. Business Insider sources claim that publishers’ revenue from News+ is well below what Apple was projecting (ten times what Texture was generating), and that it’s promising improvements to the experience for both readers and publishers. It’s hoping to make News+ “more intuitive,” for instance, and that could include clearer labels for paid articles. Right now, you typically have to look for a small “News+” icon next to headlines on articles that otherwise look like their free counterparts.

It’s not clear just how Apple would address publisher issues. However, they’ve expressed desires to both encourage longer reading sessons (since the publishers are paid based on time spent) and simplifying the conversion of magazines to Apple’s format.

We’ve asked Apple for comment.

The service has faced challenges from the get-go, if you believe rumors. The company didn’t reach deals with major news publishers like the New York Times and Washington Post, reportedly due to concerns about the revenue split and a loss of control. And while the app to use it now ships with millions of devices, it’s iOS- and Mac-only — unlike Apple Music, there’s no Android or Windows clients. As such, it’s a tough sell if you aren’t both an Apple devotee and an avid magazine reader. The proposed interface and publisher changes won’t address those questions, but they could represent an important step.

Just how well this scales to thousands of satellites is another matter.

How are SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites faring roughly a month after launch? Quite well, if you ask SpaceX. The company reported that it’s in contact with 57 of the 60 initial broadband satellites. Although it’s not certain what happened to those three faulty satellites, they’ll eventually fall to Earth as gravity drags them down.

SpaceX also intends to deorbit two of the functioning satellites in order to test the process.

It’s still early days for Starlink, but it suggests that you won’t see a host of dead satellites clogging up Earth’s orbit. The concern is more one of scale. Eventually, SpaceX hopes to put a constellation of nearly 12,000 internet satellites into orbit. There’s no guarantee that SpaceX will enjoy similar or better success rates for all of them. A comparable failure rate would still affect hundreds of satellites over time, increasing the risk of persistent space debris.

Thankfully, the satellites won’t last forever. SpaceX already expects the satellites to last five years before they plunge into the atmosphere. It’s just a question of how many of those machines make a controlled plunge rather than failing in unpredictable ways.

Google is testing five AR filters at the moment.

Apparently, Google has plans to turn the Android Messages app into a veritable Instagram and Snapchat rival. XDA Developers has discovered that the tech giant is testing augmented reality effects with pretty impressive elements within its messaging app — the publication even managed to activate the feature to test it out. The experimental Effects button lives inside Android Messages’ camera, right beside the Photo and Video buttons.

It looks like Google is testing five effects at the moment, including one that shows your face through the window of a cartoon airplane before it flies away. The balloon effect puts flying balloons in front of and behind you, while another puts a fireworks display right in your living room. There’s also a confetti effect and an angel filter that gives you a halo and a pair of wings. The halo can follow your head around, just like Snapchat’s face filters.

XDA says it was only able to access the effects through the messaging app’s camera and that they weren’t available through the standalone camera app. While the animated messages could reportedly be sent as SMS or MMS, the feature will go well with Google’s RCS rollout, which will give you the ability to send and receive high-quality media and get read receipts in the Messages app, among other things. As with any experimental feature, it may take some time before it becomes available to the public. When it does, we hope you’re ready for a barrage of Snapchat-like animations flooding your Messages.