Tech News Roundup for October 21, 2021

Here are a few of the tech stories I’ve found interesting over the last couple days, including Xbox storage that is almost as expensive as the Xbox, Google cutting Play Store fees, and Android Apps on Windows

Microsoft Begins Testing Android Apps on Windows

One of the biggest promised features of Windows 11 was the ability to run Android apps on the operating system.  This, unfortunately, did not ship with Windows 11 at launch.  But now Microsoft has started testing Android apps in the Windows Insiders Beta Channel.

As a reminder, Android apps on Windows will be delivered through the Amazon App Store, not the Google Play store, so that already really limits the usefulness of the functionality, but something is better than nothing.  Android compatibility will be achieved through the “Windows Subsystem for Android” which essentially looks like an Android Virtual Machine running in Windows.

The first iteration of this looks extremely rough, and most people who are testing this say that it doesn’t work very well, but this is just testing.  Hopefully the bugs and issues get ironed out.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-11/258426/first-android-apps-preview-comes-to-the-beta-channel

Google is Cutting Play Store Fees to 15% on Subscriptions and Streaming Services

As Apple and Google continue to fight lawsuits over the alleged monopolies they have in their respective mobile platforms, they are both taking steps to try to appease the regulators.  The most recent step is from Google, which says it will now reduce the cut it takes on subscription services on the Play Store from 30% to 15% on day one.  Google had previously adjusted the Play Store to take a 30% cut for the first year of a subscription, then 15% after that.  Now, it will be 15% from the start.

The company says that eligible providers of ebooks and music and video streaming services may also be able to reduce the cut Google takes to 10% if they meet certain criteria.

This won’t stop the lawsuits, but will be good for both consumers and companies.

https://www.engadget.com/google-play-store-fees-subscriptions-e-books-music-streaming-apps-170908763.html

The 2TB Xbox Storage Expansion Card Costs Almost as Much as an Xbox Series X

The Xbox Series and Playstation 5 consoles have extremely high end solid state drives for fast performance, and those drives are expensive.  As a result, expanding storage on the consoles is very expensive.  Last year Microsoft released a 1TB card that works with both the Xbox Series S and Series X at a price of $300.  The Xbox Series S by itself is $380.  Now, there are new options, a 512GB card and a 2TB card.  The 512GB card costs $180 and the 2TB card clocks in at $520, while the Xbox Series X console is priced at $600.  While these storage cards are expensive, the pricing is actually about in line with buying Solid State Drives of this type for a PC.  These drives are just high end, and fast.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/10/21/seagate-2tb-storage-expansion-card-costs-almost-as-much-as-xbox-series-x/

Google Making Changes to YouTube Music

Google is making some changes to its YouTube Music streaming service, affecting both the free and paid tiers.  Essentially, Google is swapping two features between them.  Now, the free tier of YouTube Music will allow for background playback.  Apparently, users on the free tier could not close the app and keep music playing before now.  However, free users of YouTube Music will lose access to watching music videos on the platform.  Considering you can… you know.. just go to YouTube to watch those music videos, that doesn’t seem like much of a big deal at all, and actually having background playback is a much better deal, in my opinion.  The free tier of YouTube Music is playlist based, and does not have unlimited skips, so there are still limits to the service.

The changes are being tested in Canada first, and take effect on November 3rd.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/10/21/google-youtube-music-canada-songs-only/

Microsoft Surface Duo 2 Reviews Hit

The reviews of the Microsoft Surface Duo 2 have hit and they are… not good.  Most reviewers talk about how Microsoft made some parts of the phone better, like including passable cameras and having high end specs, but that those changes made other parts of the experience of using the device worse.  And Microsoft’s track record of keeping the first Surface Duo updated with software support was spotty, to be polite.

The Surface Duo 2 is $1900 in Canada, which seems like quite a bit of money to ask for this product.  I’m not sure who it is for.

https://www.theverge.com/22738082/microsoft-surface-duo-2-review-folding-phone-dual-screen-multitasking

Apple’s New Power Brick for the MacBook Pro is the first to support USB Power Delivery 3.1

Allow me to nerd out just a little bit.  USB Power Delivery is very important to the technology industry, as it allows one standard plug to power almost anything, negating the need for proprietary barrel plugs, especially on laptops.  USB Power delivery had been limited to 100 Watts of power, which was fine for smartphones, tablets, and general purpose laptops, but higher performance devices need more power than that.  The spec is also scalable enough that you can safely plug in a device that may only need 5 watts of power into a 100 watt charger, and it will only draw the power it needs.  It really is one charger to rule them all.  Now, the USB PD 3.1 spec allows up to 240 Watts of power through the USB-C port, which should allow all but the most powerful of laptops to use USB-C for power.  Apple is the first company that I know of that is adopting USB PD 3.1 in a product, with the 140 Watt Power Adapter for the new 16” MacBook Pro supporting the standard spec.

Annoyingly, the laptop itself only supports the full 140 Watt speeds through the magsafe port, with the USB-C ports only rated for 100 Watts.  Apple gonna Apple.  Regardless, it is exciting to see the new spec in a real product, and I bet we see a lot of high performance, high power laptops in 2022 powered by USB-C.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22734233/apple-140w-macbook-charging-brick-gan-usb-c-pd-3-1-third-party-chargers

Tech News Roundup for June 8, 2020

It was a light weekend, but here are a few things that caught my eye over the last few days

Airbnb reporting an increase in domestic bookings

Some interesting data from Airbnb related to COVID-19.  The company is reporting an uptick in “local” bookings, which are defined as bookings within a country.  Over half of between May 17th and June 3rd were bookings within roughly 320km of the home address of the person booking the stay.  The data also suggests longer local trips compared to shorter international ones.  Part of this is theorized to be because of expanded work from home programs allowing people to work from different locations.

It will be interesting to see this trend over the short to medium term as the world continues to deal with COVID-19 while still opening up and allowing more travel

The Verge

Google Duo Now Allows Anyone to Join a Call With a Link

Google’s video calling service, Google Duo, launched in mid 2016 to little fanfare because of it’s very basic and bare bones feature set.  While it’s companion chat product, Allo, died a quick death, Duo gained enough popularity to stick around and the company has continued to develop it.  With COVID-19, the pace of development has quickened greatly.  One thing that was missing compared to competitors like Skype and Zoom was the ability to send a link that anyone can click on to join a call.  Google has fixed that, and now the option exists.  This makes Duo a more viable option for group video calls, which most of us are doing a lot more of now.

Android Police

YouTube Posts Documentation on Monetization

One thing that has been frustrating for many YouTube creators are the often opaque rules around monetization of videos.  For creators trying to actually make some kind of income from YouTube, these rules and the lack of transparency around them meant that a video the creator believed was safe to monetize would be flagged and had monetization removed by Google, which affects the channel as a whole.  Having a video demonetized too often risks Google demonetizing an entire channel, which would be devastating to creators.

Google has finally published guidelines on what videos can and cannot be monetized, as well as examples of where the line is on whether a video can be monetized or not.  This doesn’t solve the problem with the algorithm and discoverability on the platform, which is an even bigger issue than the monetization rules, but hopefully this helps creators know where the line is, and make it easier to stay in Google’s good graces when attempting to monetize.

The Verge

Google Support

Twitter Labels Tweets Falsely Linking 5G to COVID-19

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there have been several conspiracy theories stating that the brand new 5G technology for cell phones is the cause for the virus.  It even escalated to the point that several cell towers in the United Kingdom were set on fire.  This is despite the fact that there currently is no 5G service in the United Kingdom.  There is no link between 5G and COVID-19, but those pushing the false claims and conspiracy theories have used social networks to propgate the false stories.  Twitter has begun tagging tweets that link 5G to COVID-19 with a fact check, which is a link that directs users to a page that states there is no link between 5G and COVID-19.  This is welcome, and took far too long.

Business Insider