“There seems to be a general movement towards making technology more accessible,” Schreiner said. “I think people are recognizing the great opportunities. There are close to 250 million people around the world with visual impairments and almost 40 million who are actually blind.”

That said, the S7 appears to have been optimized for Samsung’s mobile Gear VR ecosystem, she told TechNewsWorld. “We expect that the Gear 360 camera [will] let users finesse VR content creation and limited editing on the device.”

Facebook “could become a major player in B2C interactions,” Schreiner told the E-Commerce Times.

“At CES, you could see that companies are now looking to collaborate, where before they’d just depend on their own in-house apps,” she said.

“This has implications for the whole ecosystem, including Periscope, Meerkat, Google,” remarked Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“Facebook’s going to have to start to think about monetization,” Schreiner predicted.

]]> https://c4trends.com/2015/12/07/facebook-lets-ordinary-people-try-out-live-video/feed/ 0 https://c4trends.com/2015/11/12/susan-quoted-in-technewsworld-com-article-2/ https://c4trends.com/2015/11/12/susan-quoted-in-technewsworld-com-article-2/#respond Thu, 12 Nov 2015 14:41:28 +0000 http://c4trends.com/?p=706 “It does seem the iPad Pro is very good value for the money, and price-wise it hits the sweet spot of around $1,000,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

Click here to read in the original publication.

Music Stories “gives musicians more exposure and won’t be a problem because the number of musicians who are successful at selling on Facebook constitutes a very small group in a very large universe,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“This is going to be a win-win,” she told TechNewsWorld.

Now Facebook Users Can Tell Their Music Stories

By Richard Adhikari Nov 6, 2015 3:45 PM PT

Facebook on Thursday announced Music Stories, a feature in its iPhone app that lets users post links to music they like with comments.

Clicking the link will launch a 30-second preview of the music, which is streamed from either Apple Music or Spotify. Listeners then can purchase the music from the service or save it to their account there.

Facebook plans to add other streaming services to the feature. There was no word on whether it will offer Music Stories in its Android or Windows Phone apps.

More Than Just a Link

Subscribers who participate in Music Stories can do more than just paste a link; they can add commentary and remarks as well.

Music Stories is part of Facebook’s News Feed, and it could extend the reach of the artists whose work is posted.

Spotify users have to sign into their account on the service and grant Facebook permissions the first time they use the Music Stories feature, said Spotify spokesperson Marni Greenberg.

“Spotify is not putting up and/or serving any content on Facebook,” she told TechNewsWorld. “Users are explicitly sharing content.”

Participating in Facebook Music Stories “provides Spotify listeners with a more engaging and simple way to listen to, discover and share music they love,” Greenberg said.

Music Stories is an extension of the music sharing capabilities for Spotify and Rdio that Facebook has had for some time.

Apple and Spotify

Spotify and the iTunes Store not only serve up music, but also have their own sharing capabilities.

Apple Music, which was unveiled in June, includes Connect, which lets artists share lyrics, backstage photos and videos with fans and release their latest songs directly to fans.

Fans can comment or like anything artists have posted and share it through Messages, Facebook, Twitter or email. Artists can respond directly to fans’ comments.

Spotify earlier this year introduced Touch Preview, which lets subscribers preview playlists, songs, albums or artists before playing a tune.

“Music Stories and Touch Preview are entirely different and unrelated,” Spotify’s Greenberg pointed out.

Wider Exposure

Many musicians sell their music directly through Facebook, or through services such as CD Baby, which has its own Facebook page.

Music Stories “gives musicians more exposure and won’t be a problem because the number of musicians who are successful at selling on Facebook constitutes a very small group in a very large universe,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“This is going to be a win-win,” she told TechNewsWorld.

The Impact of Music Stories

Music “is one of the top five applications for Facebook,” remarked Russ Crupnick, managing partner at MusicWatch. “You have a significant number of Facebook followers engaged with music artists, following them and talking about them.”

Apple and Spotify can only benefit from Music Stories, he told TechNewsWorld, because “when you have the kind of audiences that Facebook does, the ability to create some linkage between people and Apple Music, which is really just getting started, and Spotify, which has a few years under its belt but can still grow its audience, is very valuable.”

Facebook had about 1.5 billion monthly active users in the second quarter, according to Statista.

The tie-in with Facebook, however, will “probably not” cause a surge in subscriptions to those streaming services or downloads from them, Crupnick observed. Instead, it’s “one of those small, incremental moves that makes sense for the artist, makes sense for Facebook and makes sense for the streaming companies.”

It has a repository of 20,000 Smart Replies that will continue to grow with time, Google spokesperson Emma Ogiemwanye told TechNewsWorld.

“It’s difficult to do anything at all communications-related when you’re traveling,” remarked Susan Schreiner, a senior editor/analyst at C4 Trends. “If you can find a quiet corner to do this, it certainly is a way to get a handle on the inbox.”

Smart Reply will be available in English in Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

How Smart Reply Works

The Smart Reply system is based on a pair of recurrent neural networks, one of which is used to encode incoming email and the other to predict possible responses.

The encoding network examines incoming emails word by word and produces a list of numbers, known as a vector, that captures the gist of what’s being said.

This vector is independent of syntax. For example, it will come up with similar vectors for the questions “Are you free tomorrow?” and “Does tomorrow work for you?”

The second network takes this thought vector — which can be thought of as a meme — and creates a grammatically correct reply one word at a time.

Gmail is using long short-term memory network architecture for the neural networks because it will work even when there are long delays, and it can handle signals with a mix of low- and high-frequency components.

The LSTM architecture homes in on the part of an incoming email that will be most useful in predicting a response.

Google engineers developed a machine learning system for mapping natural language responses to semantic intents. Knowing how semantically similar two responses are lets the system suggest responses that vary in both wording and underlying meaning.

There will be some mistakes at first as the system may fail to interpret memes correctly all the time, but “people will be forgiving because I think they do understand that, for anything, there’s a learning curve,” C4 Trends‘ Schreiner told TechNewsWorld.

Gimme a Good Digital Assistant!

“I’m quite bullish on the notion of digital assistants, but so far, no one has actually studied how professionals work,” commented Mike Jude, a program manager at Frost & Sullivan. “If they did, they’d focus as much on telephone answering as they do on emails.”

The ideal assistant “would be able to answer your phone, take a message, and then email the message to you,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Additionally, it would be able to filter your emails into buckets like urgent, routine and garbage” and would be able to take dictation.

Digital assistants “wouldn’t try to answer your emails because emails are evidence, and most people are becoming fairly thoughtful as to what they put into them,” Jude said.

“Most people who get lots of email approach it like this: They consider the source, consider the topic or title, and respond if necessary,” he pointed out. “Actually opening an email to see what kind of response the machine would suggest adds time,” and selecting a response from those offered “forces you to play an unending game of 20 questions.”

Guarding Users’ Privacy

The privacy of Smart Reply users is protected because no humans read incoming emails, Google said. The researchers had to get machine learning to work on a data set they could not read.

“Google is in the data-collection business,” C4 Trends’ Schreiner said. Data gleaned by the Smart Reply system on incoming emails, even if it’s just to create more fine-tuned responses in the future that will be stored in Google’s servers, “is just more information for their ad analytics.”

To read the full article, click here.

“The interesting thing is some of the partnerships Twitter has set up,” C4 Trends‘ Schreiner said. For example, one partner is JCDecaux, which specializes in outdoor marketing, and will begin displaying tweets on screens in bus terminals, shopping malls and elevators.

That “will be of value to different types of businesses to provide up-to-the-minute news or some form of advertising,” Schreiner said. “You take an elevator in a building and its screen displays an ad for a nearby bank or store, for example.”

“The question is, are the price point and the looks designed to penetrate the marketplace Apple’s a player in?” mused Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“Apple’s in the premium-priced products market. This is the first time Microsoft is taking that kind of approach, and I think it’s either doing this to go into the premium market or to show what can be done,” she told TechNewsWorld, “and is looking to have its OEMs come up with an equally good lower-priced product.”

Surface Book Evokes Oohs, Ahhs and Sticker Shock

By Richard Adhikari Oct 21, 2015 3:47 PM PT

Many reviewers have responded to the preproduction version of Microsoft’s Surface Book the way an average Joe would view a top-of-the-line luxury car: The features are great, but the price is daunting.

“Overall, we recommend it, especially to people who value performance, design and battery life above all else, and are willing to pay dearly for it,” remarked Dana Wollman in her Engadget review.

The Surface Book is “astonishingly expensive,” said Ars Technica’s Peter Bright.

“There’s no way around it: The Surface Book is expensive,” Gordon Mah Ung wrote for PC World.

The Surface Book starts at US$1,500. Whether that’s value for your money depends on what you are looking for.

“The question is, are the price point and the looks designed to penetrate the marketplace Apple’s a player in?” mused Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“Apple’s in the premium-priced products market. This is the first time Microsoft is taking that kind of approach, and I think it’s either doing this to go into the premium market or to show what can be done,” she told TechNewsWorld, “and is looking to have its OEMs come up with an equally good lower-priced product.”

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On the Surface

Based on our review sample, these are the Surface Book’s strong points: design and construction, screen, pen input, keyboard, battery life and performance speed.

Weaknesses: When freed from the docking base, its battery life is too short. Also, the hinge doesn’t work when the Book runs out of juice.

The Surface Book packs in good performance, Brett Howse noted on AnandTech.

The Skylake 15 W processors “are great for day-to-day tasks, and the GPU only puts it further ahead of most Ultrabooks,” he wrote. “Having a full 15 W core processor in a 7.7 mm chassis is fairly impressive, especially since you almost never hear the fans kick in.”

Results in gaming-focused tests, such as 3DMark’s Sky Driver benchmark, indicate the Surface Book wasn’t built for gamers, Engadget’s Wollman remarked. Titles ran at an average of around 30 frames per second, which is “playable, but it was slow enough that I decided against running additional benchmarks that simulated an even more graphically intensive game.” Further, games were one of the few things to “really make the fans start whining.”

The GPU in the Surface Book “does not put it in contention with an 8-pound, 17-inch gaming laptop or even a mid-range, 5-pound laptop,” PC World’s Ung said, but “Counter-Strike: Global Operations, DotA, League of Legends and StarCraft II are not a problem.” The Surface Book “will give you twice the performance of integrated graphics in those games and more.”

Move Over, Cook!

The Surface Book has won some favorable comparisons to the MacBook Pro.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display starts at $1,300 and weighs 3.4 pounds. Neither it nor the 15-inch version has a touchscreen.

“This is exactly what Microsoft needs to provide leaderships on Windows tablets as a counterweight to Apple,” said Eric Smith, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics.

“The end goal must be to cannibalize as much laptop demand with 2-in-1 tablets as possible before the demand shifts to Apple, or to Android or Chrome devices,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“This is a long-haul game for Microsoft to gain market share,” Smith observed.

“If Microsoft can actually take on and beat Apple’s MacBook products, it will have done something very few vendors have attempted and even fewer have achieved,” said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

The Surface Book is Microsoft’s bid to fully explore and drive the capabilities of the Windows OS, he told TechNewsWorld. “If it succeeds, it could do Microsoft’s public image a lot of good.”

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“They’re really trying to unify their prods around Windows 10, and that seems to be in line with Nadella’s vision,” she told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft Throws the Book at Apple

By Richard Adhikari Oct 6, 2015 2:53 PM PT

Microsoft on Tuesday held an event in New York City where it unveiled a laptop, a tablet, three Lumia smartphones and a fitness band — all running Windows 10 — along with a slew of other products.

It also announced new apps for Windows 10, including Box, Facebook, Instagram, Flipagram, Candy Crush Soda Saga and Uber. All of the apps will be available on the new devices.

“Microsoft’s now working to showcase that it’s building out its ecosystem based on Windows 10,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“They’re really trying to unify their prods around Windows 10, and that seems to be in line with Nadella’s vision,” she told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft’s Magic Book

Microsoft’s top-of-the-line product is its Surface Book laptop. Taking Microsoft’s two-in-one concept to the next level, it breaks out into three configurations: a portable clipboard, which results when the 13.5-inch display is detached from the keyboard; a laptop; and what Microsoft calls a “creative canvas” — turning the screen around and reattaching it to the keyboard to use it in a pen-first mode.

The Surface Book has a sixth-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, up to 16 GB of memory, a multitouch PixelSense screen and a Surface Pen. A discrete graphics chip is offered as an option.

Microsoft promises the Book will have up to 12 hours of battery life.

Pricing begins at US$1,500.

Top-of-the-Line Tablet

Microsoft also unveiled the Surface Pro 4 tablet, with a multi-position kickstand and an improved keyboard.

It has a 12.3-inch PixelSense display and uses sixth-generation Intel Core M, i5 or i7 processors.

The Surface Pro 4 Type Cover has a redesigned mechanical keyboard and an optional fingerprint reader.

It has up to nine hours of battery life.

Pricing starts at $900.

Microsoft is taking preorders for both the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4; both products will be available in the United States and Canada Oct. 26.

“What’s going to be interesting is, Apple will be making an announcement for the iPad before the end of the year,” Schreiner commented.

That might spark another free-for-all in the tablets market.

Targeting Apple

The Surface Book is “arguably the most powerful thin laptop on the planet,” remarked Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. “It uses Intel’s Skylake and Nvidia graphics to get there.”

It is one of the first products out of Microsoft’s new conjoined lab, Enderle told TechNewsWorld, and “looks like what [Apple chief design officer] Jony Ive might design if he were allowed to bridge the iPad and MacBook.”

Microsoft is aiming the Surface Book at the MacBook Pro, and targeting the MacBook Air with the Surface Pro 4.

The Surface Book and Pro 4 “will compete very strongly for replacement sales of tablets and PCs,” Eric Smith, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, told TechNewsWorld.

New Lumias

Microsoft’s flagship Lumia 950 and 950 XL smartphones are essentially your office in a pocket with Windows 10’s Continuum capability, their ability to connect to monitors through a Microsoft Display Dock, to run Office 360 apps, and let users add a keyboard and mouse.

The new Lumias have the latest PureView cameras with 20-MP sensors on the rear, triple LED natural flash and 4K video capture.

They use tablet-class liquid cooling and can be charged over USB Type-C ports from flat to 50 percent battery capacity in 30 minutes.

Price is $550 for the 950 and $650 for the Lumia 950 XL.

Running to Keep Up

Still, Microsoft’s “behind [in the mobile area] and trying to catch up,” Enderle said.

Windows Phone devices still suffer from a dearth of apps, for example.

However, “with 110 million Windows 10 users, the hope is Microsoft has the critical mass to get the apps built now,” Enderle said.

Microsoft has reported a four-fold growth in its developer base, he noted, but “if they had this kind of an effort a decade ago, they wouldn’t be where they are now.”