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“Dungeon Survivor II: Dark Tide is talking signups for its Lovecraftian horrors” plus 29 more VentureBeat

“Dungeon Survivor II: Dark Tide is talking signups for its Lovecraftian horrors” plus 29 more VentureBeat

Dungeon Survivor II: Dark Tide is talking signups for its Lovecraftian horrors

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 11:59 AM PST

Dungeon Survivor II: Dark Tide’s world features ghoulish creatures and a dark fantasy aesthetic — and other parts are left up to your imagination. Leiting Games’s followup to its 2014 title includes elements of text-based adventure, similar to the multiuser dungeons (or MUDs) of yore. The mobile game will be available on iOS and Android, though it doesn’t have a release date yet. Users can register on the website, and Leiting is trying to entice players by offering rewards for those who sign up should they reach certain milestone numbers.

The sequel is inspired by author H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and eldritch gods. In battle and in town, players will get graphics of monsters during turn-based combat and of the dismal village where they’ve set up shop. Dungeon exploration takes place on a map, with small icons indicating interactable items like chests. However, a good chunk of the game is also presented as text, such as conversations with non-playable characters and special events.

Leiting will roll out the game with six classes, though it says it will offer over 50 different subclasses. Players will be able to level up characters, search for loot in procedurally generated dungeons, construct buildings in town, and progress through a tale about a coveted relic that promises immense power. The game has a story campaign as well as player-vs.-player combat.

Along with Dungeon Survivor, the Hong Kong-based indie studio has a strategy game out on app stores called Origin, as well as with other Chinese-language games on its site.

More Lovecraft-inspired games have popped up as of late, perhaps in part motivated by the success of Red Hook Studios’s punishing roguelike RPG Darkest Dungeon. The horror fiction author’s influence can also be seen in text-based games like Failbetter Games‘s Fallen London and Sunless Sea, which are set in a dismal underwater world filled with dark mysticism and uncanny creatures.

How startups are changing their approach to distributed teams as big tech looks outside the Valley

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 11:15 AM PST

FEATURE:

When ClassPass was looking to open a third office outside of its New York and San Francisco locations, it decided on Missoula, Montana — a location that doesn’t usually top the lists of the best cities for tech startups.

“We wanted to choose a place where big tech companies weren’t already in. No Googles, no Facebooks, no Microsofts, no Amazons,” CEO Fritz Lanman said. He added that the company also wanted to choose a city that afforded opportunities for its employees to live an active lifestyle — a must-have for a fitness startup.

ClassPass didn’t have to go all the way to Montana to avoid being in the same place as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. But the options aren’t as plentiful as they used to be — tech giants are starting to slow their pace of growth in the Bay Area as they look for other cities to add jobs.

“Last year in the U.S. we grew faster outside the Bay Area than in the Bay Area,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call last week. “To support this growth, we will be making significant investments in offices across nine states, including Colorado and Michigan.”

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Distributed teams are nothing new — any company that wants to have an international reach must have offices in different parts of the world.

But today’s distributed teams are outsourcing more than just sales and customer service jobs — low-paying positions that headquarters have traditionally been most willing to exile — to the U.S. Heartland. And they are willing to look farther off the beaten path as cities like Austin and Denver that have traditionally been popular expansion locations become crowded.

“We’ve seen an increase in distributed teams,” Puneet Agarwal, a partner at Silicon Valley-based True Ventures said, referring to his firm’s portfolio companies. “Interestingly, we’re also investing more in companies outside of the Valley who are ready and willing to hire top tech talent from everywhere and allowing them to continue to work from their remote location.”

Dennis Donovan, a principal with site selection firm WDG Consulting, told VentureBeat that he’s seeing more “second stage” technology companies choosing to leave the Bay Area altogether, many of them opting for Reno, Nevada, and other Mountain West cities like Denver, Boise, or Phoenix.

Cutting loose from the Bay Area

Toni Schneider, also a partner at True Ventures and the former CEO of Automattic, attributes the long-standing hesitancy of many companies to leave the Bay Area to the rise of corporate campuses during the Google-led tech boom.

“Every startup’s goal was to get big enough so they could build their sort of mini-Google campus,” Schneider told VentureBeat in a phone interview, referring to the mid-2000s, when Automattic launched.

Automattic, which is most well-known for its flagship product WordPress, operates using a fully distributed team. Because WordPress started as an open source project, Automattic’s first team members were already working virtually alongside one another. Today, Automattic has about 677 employees scattered across 63 different countries.

Even though Automattic didn’t need to purchase office space, Schneider says the company bought one in San Francisco anyway, to appease investors who “thought it was weird that we didn’t have an office space.”

In May 2017, Automattic decided to close the office space for good. Schneider noted in a blog post at the time that not as many employees ended up working out of the San Francisco office as the company anticipated.

This was due to a number of factors, but one of the most notable ones: Employee turnover ended up being more than double in the Bay Area than it was anywhere else.

“We started hiring further and further out,” said Schneider. “The part that I also didn’t anticipate was the number of people that would join the company and would move somewhere. But they wouldn’t move to where we were — and they wouldn’t say ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted to live in Paris, so I’m going to move to Paris.’ They would move somewhere where their family was.”

Getting ahead of the crowd

Above: ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman at the company’s newly opened Missoula office.

Silicon Valley often bemoans the lack of tech talent concentrated in other parts of the country. And they’re not wrong — according to LinkedIn, the Bay Area is home to 218,000 of the nation’s software engineers — nearly 70,000 more engineers than the city with the next highest number, New York City. But recent data shows that tech job growth in Silicon Valley is slowing.

Anecdotally, there are a number of well-known tech players who, like the Automattic employees mentioned above, have decided to move closer to family within the past several years. Those names include Chris Olsen, a former partner at Sequoia who now manages Drive Capital in Columbus, Ohio, and Brian McClendon, a former Uber and Google executive who is now running for Kansas secretary of state.

Sometimes, it can just take one or two of these well-known “first movers” to convince a tech company to take a chance on tech talent in a second- or third-tier city.

Lanman said that after ClassPass had chosen Missoula for its second office, he reconnected with an engineering executive that he had previously tried to recruit to work for ClassPass. ClassPass had originally only planned on hiring for sales and customer service jobs at its Missoula outpost.

“I was trying to recruit him to work in San Francisco and New York, and he told me he decided to move back home to Missoula. I said, ‘You’re kidding. We just signed a lease there,'” Lanman recalled. “He said, ‘Hey, if you let me work from there, I’ll do it.'”

Now, ClassPass hopes to fill around 50 jobs in the next year in its Missoula office, which just opened several weeks ago. It also has a tentative plan to include engineers as some of its new hires.

When it’s time to select your HQ2

There’s another reason why it’s likely that the tech sector will continue to see a rise in distributed teams — Amazon’s much-dissected announcement last year that it would open an office somewhere in North America that’s fully equal to its second headquarters.

Most other companies aren’t likely to replicate Amazon’s public auction. But it’s a safe bet that some young startups will also pencil in the idea of an HQ2 into their company timeline.

Josh Reeves, the cofounder and CEO of San Francisco-based Gusto, told VentureBeat that he started thinking about building the company’s “second homebase” in 2014, three years after the company was founded.

Above: Some Gusto employees in the company’s Denver office.

Image Credit: Courtesy Gusto

“We care deeply about culture at Gusto and we wanted to make sure that our second office didn’t feel detached from our first, which is what often happens with satellite offices that aren’t given the same resources or attention,” Reeves said in an email to VentureBeat.

According to a Gusto spokesperson, the company evaluated each city on a number of hiring and talent criteria, including how strong the local talent pool was, how easy it would be to travel to the city from San Francisco, and the likelihood that Gusto, which sells a cloud-based HR platform, would be able to hire thousands of people in that city over several years.

Gusto ended up choosing Denver for its second office in July 2015. The company sent a team of six employees to set up interviews for the first round of prospective candidates, and to be the “founding members” of the Denver office.

“The founding members of the Denver office were all high performers who are also strong ambassadors of Gusto values and culture. We knew we could trust them with important decisions like hiring and setting a foundation for our new team,” Reeves said.

Within two months, Gusto had 25 full-time employees based in its Denver office. Today, that number has grown to 250 employees who work on the sales, customer service, marketing, engineering, and product teams.

While the move has gone well so far for Gusto, many of the companies going all-in on distributed teams are still young. There will likely be some shuttered offices and a thinning of the herd as some startups inevitably grow too quickly.

“Distributed is not a model that works for everyone,” Lanman said. “[ClassPass’] ethos is very entrepreneurial, very experiment driven, and we’re totally willing to give it a shot.”

Pinterest sees 600 million visual searches every month

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 10:00 AM PST

Pinterest shared insights into its Lens visual search tool today, one year after the social media platform launched the tool in beta for its Android and iOS apps. Together with Pinterest browser extensions and Pin searches, Lens is now used to complete 600 million visual searches every month, with people twice as likely to use Lens today compared to six months ago. Visual searches with Pinterest have been available for two years, but they’re up 140 percent year over year since the launch of Lens.

Tattoos, nails, and sunglasses are among the most popular items searched for using Lens. Other top searches by type include cats, wedding dresses, plants, quilts, brownies, and natural hair styles.

Fashion tops popular categories, followed by home decor, art, food, and products.

Also announced today: Lens photo searches can be combined with text searches in the iOS app, which gives people the ability to pair a search term like “winter fashion” or “date night” with a picture of a particular item of clothing. No time frame was provided for when the same functionality will be extended to the Pinterest Android app.

“Lens now understands more than five times as many things, including hundreds of recipe ingredients, thousands of styles of clothing and countless more objects you might find around your home,” the company said in a blog post.

Since launch, Lens has grown beyond the Pinterest app to Bixby visual search in Samsung Galaxy phones, web browsers, and products like Lens Your Look and Shop the Look, which showcase shoppable pins from bloggers and content creators.

The goal with Lens, Pinterest head of engineering said at VB Summit last fall, is to recognize your style even if you can’t find the words to name that style.

“We don’t have to know the name of your style, but we [can match it], and I think that’s the magic part. That’s why we believe Lens is the first baby step to encourage users to use your phone and camera as an input of what you’re thinking; then we will figure out what we can do for you to finish the journey,” Fan said.

To continue its effort to compete with visual search tools from companies like Google and Amazon, last month Pinterest hired Google computer vision researcher Chuck Rosenberg to lead its visual search team and act as head of computer vision.

Chrome will start marking all HTTP sites as not secure in July

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 10:00 AM PST

Google today announced the third step in its browser’s war on HTTP sites. Starting in July 2018, Chrome will mark all HTTP as not secure right in its address bar.

HTTPS is a more secure version of the HTTP protocol used on the internet to connect users to websites. Secure connections are widely considered a necessary measure to decrease the risk of users being vulnerable to content injection (which can result in eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, and other data modification). Data is kept secure from third parties, and users can be more confident they are communicating with the correct website.

Google has been pushing the web to HTTPS for years, but it accelerated its efforts last year by making changes to Chrome’s user interface. Chrome 56, released in January 2017, started marking HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit cards as “Not secure.” Chrome 62, released in October 2017, started marking HTTP sites with entered data and all HTTP sites viewed in Incognito mode as “Not secure.”

As a result, over 78 percent of Chrome traffic on both Chrome OS and Mac are now HTTPS, while 68 percent of Chrome traffic on Android and Windows is also HTTPS. But Google is not stopping there.

With the release of Chrome 68 in July 2018, here is how HTTP sites will look like in the address bar:

Here is how Google explains its thinking behind the change:

Chrome’s new interface will help users understand that all HTTP sites are not secure, and continue to move the web towards a secure HTTPS web by default. HTTPS is easier and cheaper than ever before, and it unlocks both performance improvements and powerful new features that are too sensitive for HTTP.

The plan was always to mark all HTTP sites as “Not secure.” Eventually, Google will change the icon beside the “Not secure” label and make the text red to further emphasize you should not trust HTTP sites:

Google also announced today that the latest version of Lighthouse, its automated tool for improving web pages, now features mixed content audits to help developers migrate their sites to HTTPS. The new audit shows developers which resources a site loads using HTTP and which ones can be upgraded to HTTPS simply by changing the subresource reference to the HTTPS version.

Microsoft schedules Build 2018 developer conference for May 7-9 in Seattle

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 09:33 AM PST

Last year, Microsoft moved its Build developer conference from San Francisco to Seattle. The company has apparently deemed the decision a success as Build 2018 will indeed stay in the company’s home state of Washington, scheduled from May 7 to May 9, 2018. Registration opens on February 15.

The event this year overlaps with Google’s I/O developer conference, which is scheduled for May 8 to May 10 in Mountain View. Unlike Google, which is hosting its event at its headquarters, Microsoft is sticking with Seattle rather than moving its conference to its headquarters in Redmond, likely due to facility constraints.

In 2018, Microsoft will undoubtedly talk AI, Windows 10, HoloLens, Visual Studio, .NET, Azure, Xbox, and everything in between. We expect a particular emphasis on Always Connected PCs. There will also be a few surprises, as is typical with such conferences.

Microsoft has many other events throughout the year, including Microsoft Inspire for partners and Microsoft Ignite for business and IT leaders. Build is the biggest, however, targeting developers and anyone else interested in the latest and greatest from the company.

The event attracts developers from all around the world and is always chock-full of news. Here is a recap of what happened last year: Everything Microsoft announced at Build 2017.

As always, Build schedule and pricing are not yet known. But you can bet once tickets go on sale, they’ll sell out quickly. They always do.

VentureBeat will be on site covering the news live.

Read GamesBeat Summit Stories Here

Apple DMCA request confirms source code leak of iBoot, iOS’ key initial security app (Updated)

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 09:26 AM PST

The source code for Apple’s iBoot, the little-known but critically important secure bootloader for iOS, leaked online yesterday. Apple this morning confirmed the leak by filing a DMCA copyright takedown request with the code’s host, GitHub.

Though the publication of iBoot was enthusiastically dubbed “the biggest leak in history” in the initial Motherboard report, the source code is believed to be from three-generations-old iOS 9. It is thus likely mostly a concern for users of older iOS devices lacking the “secure enclave,” a hardware security feature found in all Touch ID devices since the iPhone 5s.

iBoot is not labeled or marketed by Apple in any way. It is, however, the first app that runs when you turn on an iOS device, silently transitioning from a black screen to the white Apple icon to iOS’ colorful Home screen.

iBoot is designed to guarantee that a valid, trusted version of iOS is being loaded. Unlike other portions of iOS that have been open-sourced, it’s been kept opaque for security reasons. Apple considers bugs in iBoot to be so important that it pays security researchers up to $200,000 per vulnerability.

The disclosure of iBoot’s source code could considerably improve hackers’ chances of spotting issues, and reignite a jailbreaking scene that all but dried up as iOS’s hardware and software security improved. Motherboard speculates that the leak could also enable programmers to emulate iOS on non-Apple platforms.

That said, it’s unclear how much of the iOS 9-vintage code remains in the current iOS 11 and near-future iOS 12 iBoot process, nor how improvements to the secure enclave hardware may have mitigated risks to almost all iOS devices currently being sold.

Updated at 10:54 a.m. Pacific: An Apple spokesperson provided the following statement: “Old source code from three years ago appears to have been leaked, but by design the security of our products doesn't depend on the secrecy of our source code. There are many layers of hardware and software protections built into our products, and we always encourage customers to update to the newest software releases to benefit from the latest protections.”

To put iOS 9’s current installed base in some perspective, Apple’s App Store developer page currently shows that 93% of iOS devices are running either iOS 10 or iOS 11.

Octogeddon review — who knew that fighting as a giant octopus could be this fun?

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 09:00 AM PST

REVIEW:

Octogeddon is a stellar new arcade action-strategy game from Plants vs. Zombies creator George Fan and his new indie studio, All Yes Good. Just like PvZ, it’s zany. A giant cartoon octopus watches a video of a sushi chef slicing up an octopus, and he gets angry. He sets out to destroy the world, and the adventure begins. It is the briefest and silliest of video game plots.

Fan’s Octogeddon lives up to the mantra about good games: easy to play, hard to master. It debuts on February 8 (today) on Steam on the PC.

While the graphics are goofy, the thing that hooks you is the gameplay, which starts out ridiculously simple. You purchase a limb for your octopus, then add a weapon to it. On a PC keyboard, you press the A or D keys to move left or right. And that’s all you do for the whole game. Or you could use the left or right mouse buttons.

In rotating the octopus, you position the tentacles and the weapons attached to them so that they fire at the enemies and take them out before they converge on you. If they hit your head, you lose a life. Over time, you can add up to eight or more limbs. At that point, you become a deadly spinning arsenal, like a gunslinger with eight arms. But your enemies grow in difficulty and in number.

I found the game to be really enjoyable, and that’s a big deal, as Fan’s last game, Plants vs. Zombies, was a big reason why Electronic Arts bought PopCap Games for $750 million in 2011. But Fan took his time on this one. He got the idea during a game jam, Ludum Dare, in 2012. After he got the initial premise, he assembled a team of four and spent four years polishing it. Octogeddon is the result.

What you’ll like

The destruction is massive

Above: The Sydney Opera House falls victim to Octogeddon.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

Octogeddon is a great name because you destroy so many things. It feels like Armageddon, where you as the octopus can lay waste to humanity’s great cities. It’s so much fun to smash enemies, buildings, and monuments like the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. During the biggest fights in the latter part of the game, you can lay waste to armies of attackers. Along the way, you run into quirky bosses such as a mechanical butcher on tank treads. You have to dodge their attacks, but when you take the fight to them, it’s so satisfying. The sounds of explosions are great, and the music is dramatic and quite motivating. The waves of attackers get bigger and bigger, and so does the destruction.

Humor that makes you smile or guffaw

Above: Octogeddon scares the crap out of little humans.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

The humor is dumb, and the art style is cartoonish. But just like Plants vs. Zombies, some silly things make you laugh and grin. Octogeddon’s anger management problem is a subject of jokes. Little offenses — like a dolphin getting an award for best performance as an octopus at an awards show — set him off and he goes on a rampage.

I thought it was cute that Octogeddon crushes the small cars under his tentacles, and it was funny as tiny stick people jump out of buildings that Octogeddon is trashing. (They don’t die. They just scream and run away). Fan told me that was one of the last changes that they added, and he was so happy they managed to do it.

The weapons are creative

Above: Shop wisely since you only have eight arms.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

As you progress, you can go to the shop and buy more limbs, and you can attach a weapon to each limb. As you move through the levels, you can pick up more DNA for new kinds of creatures and the weapons they enable.

You have the equivalent of artillery, guided missiles, and rifles. But they take the form, respectively, of chickens coughing up eggs, bees sending out guided stingers, or snakes spitting venom. Some of the animals are obvious, like the porcupine shooting spines and the penguin lobbing freeze balls. But it takes creative thinking to use snail shells and coral reefs as helmets. The frog can grab a plane out of the sky with its tongue and slam it into other planes. A firefly can send out a beam that identifies stealth aircraft. An elephant trunk can push back enemies as they approach you from all directions.

The rogue-like permadeath keeps you playing

Above: Octogeddon is made by George Fan’s All Yes Good.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

You get a bunch of hearts with each life. If an enemy penetrates your defenses and hits your head, you lose a heart. You can gain hearts back, but it’s unpredictable. You can also purchase more lives, but they’re expensive. And if you run out of lives before you get through all five levels, you have to start the game over again.

When you restart, you get to have access to all of the DNA you’ve acquired. And you get to spend the shells you’ve collected in the bonus levels to buy more DNA. You also get more hearts per life, and that helps you do better the next time around. As you restart the game, you can sample different weapons among the 25 supplied. That’s why the game is fun when you replay it. But it’s a constant race, where you have to improve your proficiency faster than the enemies build up their capabilities.

Octogeddon progresses from easy to hard

Above: Some beasts of the deep are hard to take down.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

I lost a few lives at the beginning, and I felt incompetent, since it was so easy. But that’s deceptive. You add more limbs and weapons and become a wheel of destruction. But each limb gets costlier over time, and the enemies start coming at your from all directions. It becomes a frenzy as you spin the octopus to try to line up the right weapons against the hardened foes. The boss fights are tough, but they get tougher as ordinary enemies join in, forcing you to fend off simultaneous attacks from everywhere. And as you run out of lives, you get quite worried toward the end when you lose three or four lives fighting the final battle.

The final levels are intense

If you lose all of your hearts through hits to your head, you lose a life. You can earn more lives using the money you’ve accumulated over time. But they get expensive, and you have to choose between buying more tentacles or buying more lives. You earn money by taking out waves of enemies, but the objects you want to buy get more expensive as well. Each level starts out easy, but then it gets harder, as you have to take out a building at the same time you take out the enemies. And then you have to fight a boss at the end of each level. It took me around 36 hours and 13 runs to beat the game. And when I finally beat it, I felt so good. Now I’ll have to get started all over again.

What you won’t like

An occasional crash

Above: Octogeddon has a temper.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

The game crashed on my PC a couple of times. Fortunately, you never lose much momentum when that happens. I rebooted and it worked fine. But those crashes still happen later on, and it could be frustrating if they occur at the wrong time.

Not every weapon is useful

I bought a dolphin tail to speed my ability to spin. But I kept getting killed in early levels because that tail took up a weapon slot. I finally got rid of it, and I never looked back.

Some parts get tedious

Above: You have to avoid descending mines in Octogeddon’s bonus levels.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

The bonus levels seemed fun at first, but they got a bit tiresome. You are a fish, and you have to avoid the mines that are dropping down on top of you. If white shells drop, you have to move to catch them. And if electrical traps drop, you have to avoid them or risk getting stunned via electrocution. This part of the gameplay took a little skill, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as the core octopus gameplay.

It’s not a long game

Above: Octogeddon’s partial compendium of weapons.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

If you’re a skillful player, you could finish Octogeddon’s five levels in perhaps five hours. I am not a skillful player, so I had to play it over and over again. If you lose all of your lives (which consist of multiple hearts, or damage points, per life), then you’ll lose the game. You start over and go again. But if you can make it through the levels and get to the final boss, you may not be as thrilled with the game. In other words, bad players will get a lot of enjoyment and replayability out of this game. Good players will finish it too quickly.

Conclusion

Above: The frog in Octogeddon grabs an enemy with its tongue.

Image Credit: All Yes Good

The game lulled me into thinking that it was so easy. But the early levels are like a fish hook dangling in the water. Once you bite, you get into it, and then you realize that it’s not so easy after all. Every time you die, you think about how that was so preventable and you vow never to do that again. But the nature of Octogeddon’s threats is that they all hit you at once. If you are looking for one threat, another will sneak up on you and surprise you. You think that it’s so easy to protect yourself, until you can no longer protect yourself.

As it progresses, you move from overconfident to worried to intensely focused, extremely frustrated, and, finally, triumphant. Each level is structured that way, and you eventually conquer them all. I love how such a simple game, which is so accessible to everyone, can take you through a range of emotions and ever-increasing levels of difficulty. It took me around 36 hours and 13 runs to beat the game. And when I finally beat it, I felt so good. Now I’ll have to get started all over again.

Score: 90/100

Octogeddon debuts today on Steam on the PC. All Yes Good sent GamesBeat a Steam code for the purposes of this review.

Tech workers favor Seattle, Austin for relocation

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 08:27 AM PST

Many cities in America’s heartland hope that their lower cost of living is enough of a siren call to lure tech workers out of the Bay Area. But a new survey from job seeking platform Hired shows that tech workers aren’t willing to take a chance on just any city with a low cost of living.

Today, Hired published its annual “state of salaries” report, which delves into where tech workers get paid the most in 13 cities in 2017. The report found that unsurprisingly, tech workers in San Francisco are paid the most, followed by other large “knowledge hubs” like Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. Hired also surveyed tech workers on what city tops the list of places they wish to relocate to. The top 5, in order, are: Seattle, Austin, Denver, Chicago, and Atlanta.

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It may come as a surprise to some that San Francisco isn’t on that list, given that it is the city where tech workers are typically paid the most. But it’s highly likely that many of the survey respondents already work in San Francisco, given that it’s one of the cities in the U.S. with the highest concentration of tech workers.

The report states that Hired “collected survey responses from more than 700 tech workers on the Hired platform,” though it doesn’t state which cities survey respondents currently live and work in. Hired also collected salary data from more than 420,000 interview requests and job offers that were submitted on the Hired platform.

Given the limited sample size, the survey doesn’t paint a complete picture of what cities are top of mind for tech workers. But it does reinforce the idea that while many tech workers likely do want to live in a place with a lower cost of living than San Francisco, they aren’t necessarily going to relocate to any city with a lower cost of living. They’re most likely going to first look to cities that have a similarly high concentration of tech workers as San Francisco.

Another sign that cost of living doesn’t play as big of a factor in relocation decisions as companies might think — Seattle, the place that most of the tech workers surveyed want to relocate to, isn’t exactly a cheaper place to live anymore. According to Trulia, the median rent in Seattle has increased by 39.8 percent from 2012 to 2017 — an even greater rent increase than the one seen by San Francisco in the same time period. But the median rent in Seattle is still $2,300 compared to a whopping $4,000 in San Francisco.

The IndieBeat: Tuned Out channel surfs between 15 different minigames

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 08:05 AM PST

Tuned Out is a hectic mashup that puts up to four people through the paces of 15 minigames. It presents these as different channels of a virtual TV, enabling players to flip through various little worlds, all with a ’90s aesthetic. It’s Shallow Games’s debut, and it’s slated for a PC release this summer with possible console launches to be determined.

The Shallow Games team met while they were all enrolled in the New York University game design MFA program. The three of them started working on Tuned Out as their thesis project, and after graduation, they were accepted into the NYU incubation program where they continued to build it out. Upon release, it will have 15 minigames, but they’re planning on adding five to 10 more after launch — and possibly even more if folks like it enough.

Tuned Out has been in development for about a year and three months, and so far the team has shown it at festivals such as A Maze in Johannesburg and the Leftfield Collection at London-based EGX Rezzed. It’s got a colorful, chaotic look to it that features paper cutouts, stop-motion figures, clay creatures, and a perpetual VCR static haze that makes the game look like it’s in constant flux. Its party game feel is frenzied — but systems designer and programmer Denver Coulson explains the method behind the madness.

Here is an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Can you tell me more about yourself and the team?

Denver Coulson: The team is myself, Ben Sironko, and Missy Senteio. Me and Ben had hung out with each other for quite a long time. We've been working on games together for four or five years now. We went to undergrad together and did freelance in the same city for a while. Then we were just making games that we submitted to different festivals and events together. Then we both ended up going to [the New York University Game Center] at the same time.

Missy was one of our classmates. During that, we worked together a bit before our thesis came up, and then we all decided we wanted to work together on our thesis project. That's when we came to develop Tuned Out. In terms of everyone's role, Missy is visual and art direction. Ben does a decent amount of individual gameplay design. And I end up being a lot of systems, the bigger game, design and programming. But there's a lot of intermixing of roles, because we're small and don't have much of a choice at times.

GamesBeat: Did you mostly work together in class? Or did you do game jams together and then decide to do the thesis together? 

Coulson: When Ben and I were working with Missy, we worked on a number of projects together in our first year at the Game Center. And that's where we just kind of got the feeling—we had the same interests, and what we were all looking to work on—going into our thesis we knew we wanted to work on a lot of games. We were thinking a lot about doing a multiplayer—that eventually turned into this multiplayer collection you have right now with Tuned Out. We all vibed very well together.

A couple of the games inside the collection were their own individual projects that Ben and I had worked on over a couple of years, but never actually did anything with them. They were interesting in their own right, but they weren't, I would say, something we would release commercially on their own.

GamesBeat: It seems like it's challenging to basically make several games instead of just one game. What are the pros and cons of that? Was it a benefit to be able to jump from mechanic to mechanic?

Coulson: It can be very refreshing, because we get to do a lot more prototyping than the average game that's in development. You spend the first few months prototyping, and then your prototyping stops with a set of features. But for us, we're always prototyping new games every couple of months, guaranteed. Whenever we're like, “What more should we add to the game,” it's never a small thing. It's more like, “What's this new game we're adding?”

But there's a challenge in that, in terms of what the difference is between releasing each of these games individually versus releasing them as a collection. There's more of an intertwining of rules in how we teach the player and how all these games interconnect that we constantly have to go back to. That's a down side. I think we're on game 12 or 13 right now that we're working on, but we still have go back to game one and update the design and mechanics sometimes so that it properly works with game 12 or 13 or 14 or whatever else we add. We need to make sure that there's cohesion in how we teach our rules, even though our rules are kind of all over the place.

GamesBeat: When there's a rule that you introduce in game one, does that have to come back several times? How do you make sure they're cohesive?

Coulson: A good example is, in a couple of games, they make use of—we explore different types of mechanics in different ways. In one game, there are bullets that you don't control where they go. You control your body. You're kind of the snake that bullets reflect off, and they can bounce back at other things. Which worked, and so when you shoot a bullet, you can never be hurt by your own bullet. But the problem we ran into, in another game we're working on, it was this beat timing game.

It's called Heart Attack. You're this heart that turns on and off. It has the ability to reflect bullets as well if you time them right. In that game, we used to allow you to get killed by your own bullets. That caused — depending on which game people entered first — when they got to the next one they continued with the same rules on how bullets should operate, even though they weren't the same.

We have to continuously go back and figure out what's the ultimate core of a particular game, and then figure out, now that we know its core, what are the things we can't change? What are the things we can interconnect with other games? Because the whole premise is you're playing all these games at once. You only have about five seconds to learn a new game. The more we can make that new game make use of things you've already learned, the better.

GamesBeat: What do you mean by playing it all at once? Is each channel on a timer, so it cycles through the games?

Coulson: A bit, yeah. It's kind of—this is something, while we were in Game Center, the incubator, we really developed out. But the way the game works is, it's being played through what we call this weird pseudo ’90s TV. It's a mixed media of channel surfing mixed with DVR mixed with video games.

When you start a game, everyone has three channel switches, and they can choose to use them at any time. Perhaps, up on the channel switcher switches up to the next game, but if someone were to switch the channel back down, they'd go back to the game they were playing. Whenever you do this, it puts the previous game on pause, wherever you left it. You have to remember, in this one I don't die if I get hit by a bullet and in this one I need to respond quickly for that — there's this whole having to keep up with what's happening on screen.

GamesBeat: Is the end game to beat each of the games that you're cycling through? 

Coulson: There's a couple of different modes we've been building out. The most basic is, you have a set amount of time to score as many points as possible. One thing we also balance is the scoring in each game, so that your final score is your collected total of all points in all games. So long as you come out number one in a few of them, you'll generally end up winning the entire game. That's four-player competitive.

There's a more cooperative mode we're creating, a survival mode, where different bots are added into each mode and you're having to jump from channel to channel to keep surviving and defeat as many enemies as possible.

GamesBeat: It sounds like it can get really chaotic, if any player can switch the channels. How do you manage that? I imagine you want some of that chaos, but you don't want it to be just scattered.

Coulson: From the design side of things, the main aspect that we try to focus on is making sure that people who need channel switches actually have them. From a design point, making sure that not too many are out and about.

At the beginning of the game there are quite a few. Everyone starts with three, so with four people playing there are up to 12 switches that can happen. Theoretically you can fly, in 10 seconds, through 12 different games. But usually what ends up happening, and what we try to balance, is we want it to be more a tug of war between a subset of games. Usually if people are going to switch the channel, it's to bring themselves back to a game they were doing well at or try to leave one that they're doing poorly in.

The thing is, once these are exhausted, you have to earn them back. That's based on getting a number of points per game, how well you're doing or how bad you're doing. I'm not sure we've found that sweet spot yet. Some games are still very chaotic, and others, people don't switch the channel at all. It depends on how invested they are in a particular game they're playing. There's a very granular micro and macro play thing happening.

GamesBeat: Do you have a couple of different categories of games? These are rhythm games, these are bullet hell games?

Coulson: I would say most of them are brawlers, to some extent. That came about more for the balance of score than anything. But in terms of those types of games, it can range more from—in one of them you're fish screaming at each other to push each other into the water, this sumo wrestling game with screaming. In another one you're stomach acid, and you're trying to stomp on everyone else inside this crazy organic stomach. Another game, you're these characters that can shoot lightning, and you kind of have control over it.

The thing that ties these games all together is  they're all trying to use randomness and a new mechanic that you usually wouldn't see. In a lot of games, it's almost entirely about the skill of, oh, how well did you aim? Or we'll flip the game and make it about the timing or the space or the position you're in to make that the skill. I think about four or five of them are bullet-based. Two or three are just bouncing around each other. A couple are platform-based. There are definitely some themes across them, but I wouldn't say we're restricted to any particular types of games.

GamesBeat: What was the inspiration for Tuned Out? I immediately thought of WarioWare and games like that. Can you talk about where you got the idea?

Coulson: It definitely has a lot of inspirations from WarioWare, Mario Party style games, almost an intermix of that. The channel-switching specifically came from a prototype I worked on over the course of a week. It was a very basic game where you're just these squares and you're trying to collect as many things as possible, but then the rules change as you're playing. These things are worth 10 points, those are worth five points, and then sometimes things could be worth nothing. It was changing the rules repeatedly over the course of a minute, which was a lot of fun, but—it was all abstracted blocks.

I happened to, once we started our thesis, I started thinking about the fact that same idea could work across multiple games. More or less that's what we're doing. You're playing one game where the rules and the visuals are always changing on you.

GamesBeat: It sounds like you came in with these previous inspirations and ideas from other projects. How has it evolved since you started working on it full time?

Coulson: I think the biggest thing that's evolved on the project was, for quite a while it was just each of these games were being individually played, and we were thinking about how exactly we would intermix it. It took a really long time for us to get to the point of actually having all of these games play in the same system. We had an inkling of how that would work, but that alone took probably four, about four months to build that system out and then to actually see what it's like to play four games at once. You can think about it, but you really don't know until you try it.

GamesBeat: Was that the biggest challenge in development? Or was it more balancing the different games?

Coulson: I would say the two biggest challenges we deal with are the cohesion across all games, but then also the technical challenge across all games. We've had to write a pretty extensive API so that each of these games can be played individually and still be contained in memory while other games are being played. Maintaining all of these states without breaking and crashing other games—it took quite a while to get that framework set up.

And then in terms of just the cohesion across all games, that's a never-ending design problem. We'll be dealing with that until release, continue to figure out new ways of representing the games and teaching people how to play.

GamesBeat: Can we talk about the aesthetic? Because it has this really interesting video collage, Robot Chicken sensibility to it. How did you develop that? Is that something you discussed together?

Coulson: Honestly, in the beginning of the project, we really had no idea. We didn't have much of a connection in our visuals. Over time we finally came to exactly what you said, this ’90s Robot Chicken messy aesthetic. Once we started honing in on the game as this way of channel surfing, bringing back this relic of the late ’90s, we wanted to kind of represent that as well through the visuals.

So a lot of the art is actually—a few of the games aren't like this, but most of them are very physical, where it's made up of actual paper that's clipped out, or clay. We've scanned that and hand animated each of those pieces and then put it in the game afterward. And then there's a lot of glitchiness we add in terms of—not cyber glitchy, but more like old VCR glitchy. And also making use of not actual scribble vision, but reminiscing on that type of aesthetic. Even when no player is moving, we want there to always be motion.

GamesBeat: What do you think was the most important thing you learned from the MFA program? 

Coulson: Oh, man. A lot. I've been, I guess, designing games since a few years before I came to the MFA. But one of the things that it definitely helped me start honing in on is that—I would say more like, one of the interests I always had was in systems design, but I didn't necessarily have as much of a goal, a desired experience, a result I wanted to get out of those types of things. I think the Game Center has helped me to think much more about what the player experiences, what they're actually going to get out of it, beyond just the rules of the game.

I don't think Tuned Out would be what it is if it weren't for—it would be a much more boring, but visually eclectic experience. One of the things the Game Center does really well is it teaches you the basics, and then gets very in depth on what makes up a game. That's a lot of your first year. And then the second year is almost just, how do you break out of this, start questioning what games are, bringing in new experiences that haven't otherwise been seen. For us, that was huge during our design process with Tuned Out. I don't know if I would have ever considered using randomness to add a skill or a mechanic to learn before that, or the level of visceral experience we're trying to do with this game, if it weren't for that process.

IndieBeat is GamesBeat reporter Stephanie Chan's weekly column on in-progress indie projects. If you'd like to pitch a project or just say hi, you can reach her at stephanie@venturebeat.com.

Newzoo: Mobile esports ascends in Asia

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 08:00 AM PST

Multiplayer online battle arena games like League of Legends and shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive dominate the esports scene in the West, but China has a burgeoning mobile esports scene that has already seen some successes, according to a report by market researcher Newzoo. And these include games like Tencent’s MOBA Honor of Kings as well as casual offerings such as Giant Interactive’s Battle of the Balls, which has drawn over 300 million players globally.

In the report, Newzoo finds that PC and consoles will likely continue as esports strongholds in the West. However, viewers have demonstrated an appetite for mobile esports, such as Supercell’s Clash Royale. It was the most viewed mobile-only game on livestreaming platforms Twitch and YouTube Gaming in the fourth quarter of 2017, racking up 6.3 million and 15.8 million viewership hours respectively. Collectively, folks watched 1.3 million hours of Clash Royale tournaments in 2017.

These numbers are still low compared to PC esports in the West. Valve’s Dota 2’s biggest tournament, The International, drew over 5 million concurrent viewers. And in 2016, Riot Games reported 14.7 million viewers at its peak during the League of Legends World Championship.

But in China and Asia, mobile esports might have a chance. Twitch viewers watched 122,000 hours of the Clash Royale Crown Championship World Finals livestream last year, and 5,000 folks attended the event in London. The 2016 Battle of the Balls Global Finals in Shanghai attracted more attention from Chinese fans. 13,000 live audience members attended and viewers online spent a collective 3.6 million hours watching the broadcast.

Battle of the Balls is a casual title, featuring gameplay similar to the web game Agar.io, but China also has a strong interest in core mobile esports. It’s the second largest market behind the U.S. for Super Evil Megacorp’s mobile MOBA Vainglory, contributing to 20 percent of that title’s revenues. And Honor of Kings is massively popular, with over 200 million users. The Chinese tech titan’s 2016 King Pro League tournament for its hit game drew over 70 million viewers, rushing past Riot’s record for its LoL event.

“In Asia, mobile esports is expected to follow a similar structure to that of PC, with the top games being played and scalable stadium events taking place with large viewership,” said Newzoo CEO Peter Warman. “In the West, mobile esports is expected to be more successful in other layers of esports, such as the amateur scene.”

Newzoo estimates that the global games market will reach $143.5 billion by 2020. Mobile will take up 41 percent of total games revenue, totaling $72.3 billion alone. Much of that will be thanks to Asia, which contributed to 50 percent of 2017’s total games revenue of $116 billion. By 2020, the global esports audience size is predicted to grow to 589 million, and it’s likely that China and the Asia-Pacific region will be contributing to that significantly as well.

According to Newzoo’s report, mobile esports’ success may be a phenomenon unique to Asia-Pacific because of its attitude toward mobile. China is the largest smartphone market in the world and people’s mobile devices are the hubs of their daily lives. Chat facilitates everything, and Newzoo notes that most mobile games are connected either to WeChat or QQ so that players can check leaderboards and receive alerts for content updates. Because mobile is so seamlessly integrated into every aspect of life, perhaps fans see less of a divide between games on phones versus games on PC and consoles.

Though the U.S. hasn’t adopted Asia’s mobile-first culture, Tencent is trying to replicate its success in the West. It launched Honor of Kings under the name Arena of Valor in the West in December, and it will soon roll out a World Cup tournament for the game as well.

LinkedIn open-sources Dynamometer for Hadoop performance testing at scale

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 08:00 AM PST

LinkedIn today released an open source project called Dynamometer to help businesses stress-test large-scale Hadoop big data processing systems without using a massive amount of infrastructure.

The tool is designed to prevent an issue that the enterprise social network encountered in early 2015 when the company added 500 machines to its Hadoop Distributed Filesystem (HDFS) cluster in an attempt to improve performance. Instead, the team ran into a bug that only showed up at large scale and that caused jobs targeting the cluster to time out.

Dynamometer, which is named after a tool used to test cars, simulates large-scale clusters while only requiring roughly 5 percent of the actual underlying infrastructure. That helps developers get around one of the key issues with testing software at scale: Actually provisioning all of the machines can be costly, even in a public cloud environment.

Instead, customers can use Dynamometer to test the same sorts of workloads they see in production and ensure that the system will stand up to software changes. LinkedIn used the tool to analyze migration of the company's HDFS clusters from Hadoop 2.3 to 2.6, a change that required adjusting certain parameters of the clusters in order to avoid performance issues.

Erik Krogen, a lead engineer on Dynamometer, told VentureBeat in an email that the tool is meant both for companies working with Hadoop at large scale, like LinkedIn, and smaller shops that are proposing changes to the HDFS open source project and want to make sure they won't affect performance at scale.

In the long run, Krogen hopes that Dynamometer will become part of release testing for HDFS, as well as regular continuous integration of new code changes between releases. That's why LinkedIn released it to the public as an open source project. The company already used Dynamometer to help with the release of Hadoop 2.7.4, which allowed it to verify that the maintenance release didn't negatively impact performance.

Bridge Constructor Portal is warping to consoles

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 07:41 AM PST

Headup Games announced today that Bridge Constructor Portal is coming to Xbox One and Switch on February 28. A PlayStation 4 version will follow on March 1.

Bridge Constructor Portal is crossover between the the bridge-building series and Valve’s first-person puzzle franchise. Bridge Constructor Portal features gameplay similar to previous Bridge Constructor titles, but it takes place in Portal’s Aperture Labs. And using the titular portals is a major part of building your bridges.

Bridge Constructor Portal came out for PC, iOS, and Android in December. The PC version already has over 100,000 owners on Steam, according to SteamSpy. Expanding to consoles can introduce the game to a larger audience.

That could be especially true on Switch, which has become the go-to place for indie games since launching in March 2017. Indie hits like the recent Celeste have been selling best on the Switch.

Watch live as British politicians in DC grill Google, Twitter, and Facebook execs on fake news

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 06:31 AM PST

British politicians have traveled across the pond today in an effort to stem the plague of fake news by putting executives from U.S. tech companies in the hot seat.

The hearings in Washington D.C. include reps from Facebook, Twitter, and Google. The United Kingdom’s House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee organized the session at George Washington University.

A livestream is here:

The full agenda is listed above.

Kochava’s Xchng will bring blockchain to mobile ad measurement

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 06:01 AM PST

Kochava built its mobile ad measurement business to bring transparency to a growing industry. Mobile advertising is kind of murky, riddled with problems like slow payments and ad fraud, so the company has been building a full ecosystem to bring blockchain to digital advertising.

Kochava CEO Charles Manning said in an interview with VentureBeat that the company is adding four new advisors and new partners to Xchng, a unified, open source blockchain framework for digital advertising. Sandpoint, Idaho-based Kochava plans to launch the full ecosystem for a protocol-based blockchain mobile advertising system by the end of this year or early next year.

“We are building a blockchain to bring digital advertising onto a decentralized framework,” he said. “We have a lot of buyers of ads. We are getting historical suppliers of ad inventory on board.”

Manning is making the announcement at the Mobile Growth Summit event in San Francisco.

The new advisors include David Weild, CEO of Weild & Co. and former vice chair of Nasdaq; William Mougayar, blockchain industry veteran and author of The Business Blockchain; Paran Johar, CEO of Modern Marketing Summit; and John Maffei, CEO of Matcherino.

Above: Kochava chief Charles Manning

Image Credit: Courtesy Kochava

The partners and the advisors will help the company in its effort to get the wider industry on board. Kochava already measures about $6.5 billion in mobile ad spending per year.

“This is a classic marketplace scenario,” Manning said. “If you launch Uber, and no one has heard of Uber, you have to have drivers, riders, and others in the ecosystem. We have to get our supply partners on. We’re excited about having them and a bunch more in the queue to get ready for the next two or three quarters.”

Blockchain is a transparent ledger, or accounting system, that is decentralized, and because it is spread across a network of computers that verify the ledger, it is secure, transparent, and accurate. The problem is that it takes a long time to update the blockchain across all of those computers, so you can only update the ledger 10 times a second. That’s too slow for digital advertising, where there can be millions of transactions in a second.

Above: Kochava’s Xchng is an open source blockchain framework for digital ads.

Image Credit: Kochava

Manning said he first went “down the blockchain and cryptocurrency rabbit hole” about two and a half years ago. Intrigued by the technology’s potential, he asked his team (dubbed Kochava Labs SEZC) how to apply blockchain to the advertising process so you could observe everything from ad serving to measurement to ratings to payment — with all of it integrated and coordinated so that it was transparent. He assigned his team to create a “consensus engine” that would operate much more quickly than available options. They succeeded, and last year Kochava started sharing the system with other companies to figure out how it could be used to buy and sell media.

His team called the technology they developed Xchng. It has no intermediary and is a protocol-based custom blockchain that allows buyers to purchase ad inventory through the protocol and sellers to publish their inventory on the system. All of the immutable data is found in the smart contract for all to see. The Xchng framework will be powered by the Xchng Token (XT), which will be used to buy and sell media or pay for services surrounding media transactions.

Above: Kochava wants a single blockchain framework to be used across ads.

Image Credit: Kochava

“We started building a first blockchain prototype a year and a half ago, and as the initial coin offering (ICO) craze happened, we started talking about it,” Manning said. “We are now exposing it via the OnXchng partner program. We have signed 10 partners in the adtech space, and we have signed advisors.”

Manning hopes to address problems plaguing the current system, such as fraud and distrust.

“The inefficiencies are around data discrepancy,” he said. “In ads, you have a publisher ad server, an advertiser ad server, and a third-party measurement company. That’s us. The entire reason that exists is because no one trusts each other. You have to serve the ad impression, you have optimize how it is served for the right creative, and the measurement partner has to see how effective that was.”

He added, “What we want to do is codify this to an open blockchain so that everyone is working with the same pipes. The moat that many companies create is by saying these guys are onboarded, so unless you work with them, you can’t buy from us. If everyone has a common spec on an open blockchain, it’s more efficient.”

Above: The blockchain ecosystem for digital mobile ads.

Image Credit: Kochava

The system could also make it easier for publishers and ad companies to do business outside of major networks such as Facebook and Google.

“If I had to pick up the phone to call up every single media source and understand how to deal with each one, that doesn’t scale,” Manning said. “This is like the third rail of media buying. You have Google. You have Facebook. And you have Xchng.”

"The blockchain industry is growing by leaps and bounds, bringing new and disruptive solutions to markets," Weild said in a statement. "Successful initiatives will consider all stakeholders right from inception — advertisers and consumers, their agents plus governing bodies. Importantly, governance and integrity are priorities at Kochava. For this reason, the team has had great success in building relationships with their partners. So I am excited to be on board and eager to help Charles and his team drive Xchng’s success."

Asked why he is making Xchng open source, Manning said, “Blockchain is going to disrupt digital ads. Instead of being disrupted, we decided to design how that disruption was going to happen and help facilitate it.”

Adobe is bringing new Sensei AI features to Experience Manager

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 06:00 AM PST

Adobe today announced a series of new features for marketers and companies using its content and asset management solution Experience Manager. These additions draw on the smarts of its AI system Adobe Sensei and will be available next month. Features include smart cropping, smart tags that predict and automatically add image metadata, and a quick way to liven up old PDF forms.

Smart cropping allows a marketer to zoom in on an area of interest based on the display screen, so a retailer could show shoppers the entire outfit on a desktop computer but zoom in on their best-selling T-shirt or shorts on smartphones. Smart cropping is pretrained with Adobe Stock imagery and can be made smarter with images from a vendor’s product image library.

"It's a manual process historically for someone to do that," Adobe senior director for strategy and product marketing Loni Stark told VentureBeat in an interview. "With Experience Manager in the latest release, we have machine learning that guides and aids marketers to be able to do this."

There's also a tool to match customer personas with content for custom webpages, and AI that pulls text and fields from old PDF forms to create more attractive, modern-looking forms.

"It will literally take your PDF, generate a much more engaging form, and then as a marketer, as a form user, as a customer communications person, you can go and adjust it," Stark said.

The new features work more closely with Adobe's other software offerings, like Creative Cloud. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is part of the Experience Cloud.

Modifications to Experience Manager are in part informed by responses to a survey Adobe conducted of roughly 1,000 consumers in the United States.

The survey found that consumers spend 7.8 hours a day looking at digital media — a figure that jumps to more than 11 hours for teenagers. Respondents said personalization was of moderate to high importance, an indication, Stark said, that content personalization has become a major selling point for customers.

"It's not just a nice touch that a brand understands my preferences. Personalized content is now becoming more the expectation and really important," she said.

While personalization is a key factor, it can cross a line and get creepy. Nearly 30 percent of consumers surveyed said they will walk away from a purchase if the personalization feels too intrusive.

The survey provided no definition of creepy, but Stark said she’s heard some examples from brands.

“If I’m shopping on a site and I haven't really logged in or signified it then perhaps it is too creepy if it says ‘Hi, (insert name here), we saw that the last three visits you were looking at this item, are you ready to buy?'”

A survey by Adobe Analytics earlier this year found that 22 percent of smart speaker owners shop using voice commands. The Adobe Analytics Cloud launched services for tracking voice app performance last May.

The consumer survey that informed changes to Experience Cloud found 4 percent of shoppers used an AI assistant or smart speaker like an Amazon Echo to make purchases. As these grow in popularity, the next version of the survey will definitely include more about voice shopping, Stark said.

Jack Dorsey finally made Twitter profitable by curing its addiction to stock-based compensation

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 05:48 AM PST

Since going public almost four years ago, Twitter has been bleeding red ink. That has been due, in large measure, to its profligate awarding of stock options to employees.

Yes, every Silicon Valley company, public or not, does it. Stock options seem magical because they’re like free money. You give them to employees, and it’s the stock market that (eventually) pays for them.

But in reality, stock options have a cost. As a company awards more of them, it dilutes the value of shares held by all the other existing stockholders. And that means the company is required to account for them as an expense, even if it spends no actual cash.

Twitter’s IPO was in November 2013, and the cost of the company’s stock-based compensation has at times grown to epic, almost ludicrous proportions. In the second and third quarter of 2014, for instance, the value of that stock-based compensation was $158 million and $169 million, respectively, or 51 percent and 47 percent of the company’s ENTIRE REVENUE.

It’s pretty tough to turn a profit under those circumstances. The expense has been driven by stock awards to rank-and-file employees, but also to execs. In 2014, CFO Anthony Noto, who recently announced he was leaving, received a compensation package valued at $72.8 million for the six months he worked at Twitter that year.

Twitter has long been taking in more cash than it spends, so its survival has never really been in question. But this is all worth noting today as the company celebrates its first ever profitable quarter.

Twitter’s stock soared 20 percent in pre-market trading, largely based on that news. MAUs were actually down from a year ago. Revenue growth was decent. But it was the profit that caught everyone’s attention.

As Twitter explained in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, it was a drop in stock-based compensation that drove a large decrease in expenses and allowed Twitter to finally become profitable:

“Total GAAP expenses in Q4 declined 28 percent year-over-year to $621 million, reflecting our more efficient cost structure and a 26 percent decrease in stock-based compensation (SBC) expense year-over-year and resulting in a GAAP net margin of 12 percent,” the filing notes.

In raw numbers, stock-based compensation fell from $138 million one year ago to $102 million. In the coming quarter, Twitter expects that number to be between $100 million and $110 million.

To be sure, CEO Jack Dorsey and soon-to-be former CFO Noto deserve credit for weaning the company off this addiction. Laying people off also helps, of course. But what really seems to have done the trick is taking a more disciplined approach to stock-based compensation, even in the face of the wildly competitive Silicon Valley job market.

With this issue diminishing, shareholders will also get a clearer picture of the company’s actual turnaround progress. And there has been some progress. With more cash coming in the door, Twitter has the resources to soldier on, more than a year after it failed to find a buyer.

Now it can get back to building a business that’s again worthy of the adoration and trust it once inspired.

Twitter’s first quarterly profit sends shares soaring more than 20%, but monthly users remain flat

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 04:54 AM PST

Twitter posted its Q4 2017 numbers today and reported its first ever quarterly profit as a public company.

The San Francisco-based tech firm announced a GAAP net income of $91 million, which compares favorably to the net loss of $167 million during the same period last year and the $21 million net loss for Q3 2017. However, it’s worth noting here that it was a drop in Twitter’s stock-based compensation that enabled it to cut expenses, which in turn helped it finally turn a profit.

Additionally, Twitter reported Q4 revenue of $732 million, up 2 percent year-on-year and up 24 percent on the previous quarter.

Twitter hitting its first profitable quarter is notable news not just for the company but for Wall Street, too, with Twitter’s shares soaring more than 20 percent in pre-market trading.

Above: Twitter shares: pre-market trading on February 8

However, the metric everyone has been focusing on is user growth. On that front, Twitter reported 330 million monthly active users (MAUs), exactly the same as the previous quarter, though it’s a 4 percent gain on the same period in the previous year.

Digging into the numbers reveals that Twitter’s MAUs in the U.S. actually fell from 69 million to 68 million between Q3 and Q4 2017, a trend that seems to be carrying over from last year, when the company’s U.S. MAUs fell from 70 million to 68 million in Q2 2017. However, these numbers are prone to small fluctuations, so it will be interesting to see how Twitter’s domestic MAUs perform throughout the rest of 2018.

Twitter also reported that its daily active users (DAU) grew by 12 percent year-on-year for a fifth straight quarterly increase.

Qualcomm signs 19 phone makers and 18 carriers for global 5G launches in 2019

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 04:30 AM PST

Next-generation 5G cellular devices are even closer to becoming a reality today as Qualcomm announced partnerships with 19 mobile device makers and 18 carriers to bring Snapdragon X50 family 5G modems to devices sold across the world, starting in 2019. Backed by a series of 5G demonstrations at Qualcomm’s headquarters yesterday, the manufacturer and carrier announcements confirm that a wide variety of 5G phones will be available to choose from next year.

Originally announced in October 2016, Snapdragon X50 family modems promise to deliver up to 5-Gigabit-per-second data speeds and 1-2 millisecond latency, each a radical speed improvement over current best-of-class 4G LTE modems. X50 modems will expand cellular service into new sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum bands, as well as supporting simultaneous 4G and 5G connections for guaranteed reliability as fully 5G networks are built.

Above: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G is the first 5G modem for consumer mobile devices, shown here in oversized prototype form

Image Credit: Jeremy Horwitz/VentureBeat

Qualcomm’s list of mobile device makers includes many of the best-known names in the consumer electronics industry, covering millions of users across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions. Collectively, the manufacturers announced that X50 family modems will be used in 5G phones, always-connected PCs, wireless virtual reality headsets, wireless broadband modems, tablets, and IoT devices. The names include:

  • Asus
  • Fujitsu and Fujitsu Connected Technologies
  • HMD Global (Nokia Phones)
  • HTC
  • Inseego/Novatel Wireless
  • LG
  • NetComm Wireless
  • Netgear
  • Oppo
  • Sharp
  • Sierra Wireless
  • Sony Mobile
  • Telit
  • Vivo
  • Wingtech
  • WNC
  • Xiaomi and
  • ZTE

Additionally, Qualcomm’s 18 carrier partners include top names from the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. These carriers have committed to 5G trials based on the 3GPP Release 15 5G NR standard, “utilizing Qualcomm Technologies' 5G mobile test platform and smartphone reference design … while maintaining interoperability and coexistence with 4G LTE.”

  • AT&T
  • British Telecom
  • China Telecom
  • China Mobile
  • China Unicom
  • Deutsche Telekom
  • KDDI
  • KT Corporation
  • LG Uplus
  • NTT Docomo
  • Orange
  • Singtel
  • SK Telecom
  • Sprint
  • Telstra
  • TIM
  • Verizon and
  • Vodafone Group

Qualcomm plans Snapdragon X50 demonstrations at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to showcase 5G’s multiple Gbps downloads, new applications, enhanced user experiences, and 5G interoperability. Live sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G trials with leading carriers are expected in 2018 and early 2019, followed by 2019 launches of 5G networks and devices. Notably, while many of the carriers above have explicitly committed to initial rollouts of 5G in 2019, Japanese carrier NTT Docomo has said that it will launch 5G in 2020, and some others have remained ambiguous about their launch dates.

"2018 will be a big year for Qualcomm Technologies and the mobile industry overall as we work to execute on the agreed upon 5G NR specification," said Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon. "These trials demonstrate how we are working with global operators to fuel growth and innovation in the mobile industry and make 5G a reality by supporting a large number of expected commercial launches in 2019.”

Qualcomm’s latest announcements come one day after it publicized a successful collaboration with Nokia to test Qualcomm’s prototype 5G devices with Nokia’s AirScale base station using 3.5Ghz and 28Ghz radio spectrums. These tests will set the stage for upcoming field trials by several of the carriers mentioned above, as well as Elisa, Optus, and Telia.

Qualcomm paid for travel to report on its 5G initiatives. Our coverage remains objective.

Google to open second Japanese Cloud Platform region in Osaka in 2019

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 02:31 AM PST

Google has revealed that it’s building a second Google Cloud Platform (GCP) region in Japan.

The new region, which will be based in Osaka, is scheduled to open in 2019 and follows the company’s first Japanese region, which opened in Tokyo in late 2016.

“It will make it easier for Japanese companies to build highly available, performant applications,” said Google Cloud Japan’s managing director, Shinichi Abe. “Customers will benefit from lower latency for their cloud-based workloads and data.”

Google is scheduled to open a Hong Kong region later this year, which means that Osaka will be GCP’s seventh region in Asia Pacific, after Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Taiwan, and the upcoming Hong Kong launch.

Google launched its fourteenth and fifteenth GCP regions globally in the past week, with the Netherlands and Montreal now open for business. The internet giant also revealed that it’s now making $1 billion per quarter through its cloud division, roughly a fifth of what Amazon Web Services (AWS) makes in quarterly sales.

Amazon now offers free Whole Foods deliveries in the U.S. within 2 hours through Prime Now

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 01:25 AM PST

One of the biggest stories to emerge from the technology industry last year was Amazon’s shift into the brick-and-mortar realm with its $13.7 billion acquisition of organic supermarket chain Whole Foods. In the months following the deal’s closure, Amazon didn’t waste time leveraging its presence in the physical world, slashing Whole Foods pricing, promising special prices and offers for Prime members, and selling Amazon’s hardware at hundreds of Whole Foods locations.

Today, Amazon announced the next obvious step in its effort to corner both online and offline retail, opening Whole Foods grocery deliveries to Prime members as part of its Prime Now two-hour delivery service.

From today, Prime members in  Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Virginia Beach can have Whole Foods orders of more than $35 delivered directly to their door between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. The company said that it plans to expand the offering across the U.S. throughout 2018.

Amazon first introduced Prime Now to New York back in 2014, and it has since expanded the service across the U.S. and internationally. Through Prime Now, members can access free delivery on certain products within a two-hour period, or they can pay $7.99 for a super-fast one-hour delivery.

PrecisionHawk acquires Droners and AirVid to create a massive network of licensed drone pilots

Posted: 08 Feb 2018 12:00 AM PST

PrecisionHawk has announced a duo of acquisitions as the commercial drone company looks to build the biggest network of commercially licensed drone pilots in the U.S.

Founded out of Raleigh, North Carolina in 2010, PrecisionHawk supplies drones, software, and services for companies to put unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to use across numerous industries such as insurance and construction.

The two startups that have been bought by PrecisionHawk are Rhode Island-based Droners, a platform dedicated to helping drone operators hire licensed drone pilots specializing in aerial photography; and Ontario, Canada-based AirVid, which serves as a platform for finding all manner of drone pilots dealing in photo, video, cinematography, surveying, mapping, and more.

Above: PrecisionHawk: Roof damage assessment

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) passed new rules back in 2016 allowing drones to be used commercially in the U.S. Buoyed by this green light, the commercial drone market is now estimated to become a $127 billion industry by 2020, according to PwC, and investors are lining up to take a piece of the new wave of UAV startups. An estimated $454 million was thrown at UAV startups in 2016 alone, and PrecisionHawk itself has nabbed around $104 million in funding — $75 million of which came just two weeks ago.

At the time of its big raise last month, PrecisionHawk said that “strategic acquisitions” would be one of the avenues it would pursue as part of its growth, and it hasn’t hung around. These latest transactions represent PrecisionHawk’s second and third known acquisitions, after it snapped up aerial imagery company Terraserver in 2015.

Drones need pilots (but maybe not for long), which is why PrecisionHawk wants to create a wide-reaching network of licensed drone pilots which companies can call upon to not only maneuver the drones, but capture imagery as required by the client.

The company said that it plans to merge both companies under the “Droners” brand to form an immediate network of 15,000 drone pilots, which will be used not only as a channel for connecting drone pilots with companies directly, but will also serve PrecisionHawk’s own enterprise client base. Droners founder Dave Brown will head up the new PrecisionHawk pilot network development team, while AirVid founder Patrick Egan will stay on as a consultant and assist with integrating the respective platforms.

“Droners and AirVid share our mission of helping drone operators turn their passion into a profession,” noted PrecisionHawk CEO Michael Chasen. “Combined with PrecisionHawk’s expertise in providing professional drone services to the enterprise, this merger enables us to build the best platform for drone pilots while simultaneously providing our enterprise clients with the on-demand services they require.”

Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview with gaming, privacy, graphics, Eye Control, and Bluetooth improvements

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 09:36 PM PST

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs with gaming, privacy, graphics, Eye Control, security, Bluetooth, Edge, and input improvements. This build is part of the RS4 branch, which represents the next Windows 10 update the company has yet to announce (but is likely to ship soon).

Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way from its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes, but new features, too. Microsoft has released four major updates so far: November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update, and Fall Creators Update.

First up, the Game bar has received another makeover. There are now new buttons that let you access your captures, toggle your microphone and camera, and edit the title of your Mixer stream. There’s a new clock, choice of theme (Dark, Light, or your current Windows theme), and a promise that the settings are easier to use.

The Diagnostic Data Viewer that showed up in the last build now lets you delete the Windows Diagnostic Data that Microsoft has collected from your device. Just head to Settings => Privacy => Diagnostics & feedback, and hit the delete button.

The Privacy Settings navigation pane has gained new categories. There’s also a new section to Speech, Inking, & Typing settings under Privacy so that you can view and clear your user dictionary.

HDR video access has been expanded to more users (Settings => Apps => Video playback => Stream HDR video). There is also an experimental calibration tool — “Change calibration settings for HDR video on my built-in display” — that lets you change the way HDR video appears on your device based on your preferred balance between details in dark scenes and details in bright scenes.

There are also new graphics settings for multi-GPU systems (Settings => System => Display => Advanced graphics settings). You can now manage the graphics performance preferences of your apps without relying on control panels from AMD and Nvidia (in fact, Windows Graphics will override other control panel settings, and apps can even override these settings).

Each application can be set to “System default” (the system decides the best GPU), “Power saving” mode (run the application on the most power-saving GPU available), and “High performance” mode (run the application on the most high-performance GPU available). Windows 10 doesn’t do any performance benchmarking to classify your GPUs — it simply makes assumptions based on type: Integrated GPU is the best for power saving, discrete GPU is more performant, and an external GPU is even higher performing.

Windows 10 S now lets you avoid passwords by relying on the Authenticator App. This build makes your Windows 10 S PC password-free. If you have Windows Hello set up, you won't see passwords anywhere in Windows.

Speaking of security, Windows Defender is now Windows Security in Settings, and the page has been redesigned. There’s also an Account Protection Pillar that encourages password users to set up Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint, or PIN for faster sign in, and a Device Security Pillar that shows status reporting and management of security features built into your devices.

Eye Control, which is still in preview, has received a slew of improvements. It’s now easier to scroll content, like email and websites. The launchpad has gained direct left click, direct right click, Start, Timeline, Settings, device calibration, and a Pause button. Separately, the Narrator can now be used in safe mode.

Windows 10 now lets users start pairing and connecting supported devices in a single click. When these devices are ready to pair and detected to be in range, Windows 10 will show a notification to let you start the pairing process. The Surface Precision Mouse is the first device to support the functionality.

Edge’s full screen mode now lets you access the address bar and navigate to other sites, add a site as a favorite, and so on. To access these, hover your mouse at the top of the screen or drag a finger down from the top of the screen. You can also now print webpages without ads and unnecessary clutter from the web.

The Touch Keyboard now supports multilingual text support, meaning that you no longer have to manually switch languages and predictions will show up from multiple languages. Windows 10 currently supports up to three Latin script languages for multilingual text predictions. Text Prediction support is also now available for 26 more languages.

Last, but not least, there are a bunch of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) updates. The full release notes are here.

This desktop build includes the following general bug fixes and improvements:

  • Fixed an issue where the network flyout didn't have an acrylic background (Yay Fluent Design!).
  • Fixed the issue causing VPN clients installed via the Microsoft Store to not work after upgrading to Build 17083.
  • Fixed an issue where the Home text label was missing from the Settings navigation pane.
  • Fixed an issue where Windows Security in Settings was missing an icon in the navigation pane.
  • Fixed an issue where dropdowns in the new App volume and device preferences page under Sound Settings were truncated when the Settings window wasn't wide enough.
  • Fixed an issue where the new App volume and device preferences page under Sound Settings might have duplicate apps listed.
  • Fixed issues with the slider controls for sound under Settings > System > Sound and "App volume and device preferences". Thanks @MSWindowsinside, @CrazyCatsGot2 and @TheScarfix for reporting this!
  • Fixed an issue in Windows Update Settings where if you'd selected restart to kick off an upgrade and then canceled the restart, the restart button in Settings would no longer be functional.
  • Fixed an issue where the data limit dialog on the Data Usage Settings page had no margins.
  • Fixed an issue where permissions for inbox apps were cleared out when upgrading to recent builds, resulting in you being unexpectedly re-prompted to enable or disable these permissions when you launched an impacted app.
  • Fixed an issue where the Advanced display settings link was missing from Display Settings.
  • Fixed an issue where going to Focus Assist Settings might crash Settings.
  • Updated the "Use my sign-in info" text in Sign-in Options settings to be more clear.
  • Fixed an issue where clicking the search entry from the app command menu of certain apps would crash explorer.exe.
  • Fixed an issue where the night light quick action in the Action Center sometimes didn't work due to a long running calculation of the schedule to automatically turn on/off night light.
  • Updated the Action Center context menu such that the three focus assist states are now collapsed under one expandable entry.
  • Fixed an issue where sharing to Cortana Reminders wasn't working in recent flights.
  • Updated the OneDrive Files-on-Demand state icon in File Explorer's navigation pane so they now display closer to the file icon.
  • Fixed an issue where burning an ISO file to CD threw an unexpected error "Selected Disc image file isn't valid" in recent builds.
  • Updated the People flyout to now use your accent color when "Show accent color" is selected in Color Settings.
  • Fixed the issue where Win32 apps pinned to Start would display as blank live tiles that show only a name starting with "W~".
  • Fixed an issue where the Start layout might get reset if you upgraded straight from the Anniversary Update.
  • Fixed the issue where using Task View to switch to an app might result in touch not working properly in that app.
  • Fixed an issue where using the new right-click options to delete groups of activities from Timeline might not delete the entire group.
  • Removed the feedback button in Task View that was introduced for Insiders to give feedback on Timeline.
  • Fixed an issue where the text label for creating virtual desktops in Task View was truncated in certain languages.
  • Fixed an issue where the app icons in the Open With dialog might appear pixelated on high DPI screens.
  • Fixed an issue where music wouldn't re-route back to audio peripheral if you skipped to next track before connecting the USB or Bluetooth audio device.
  • Fixed an issue where the Windows.old folder wasn't completely emptied and removed after cleanup.
  • Fixed an issue where using Ctrl + Alt + Break in Hyper-V didn't work to make a VM re-enter full screen mode.
  • Fixed an issue where vmconnect couldn't insert or eject an ISO/DVD drive.
  • Fixed an issue that could result in lower frame rates in games in certain monitor configurations.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in audio from Microsoft Edge sometimes becoming unexpectedly muted in the last few flights.
  • Fixed an issue where when using Microsoft Edge with dark theme the text in the address bar might become black on dark grey.
  • Fixed a number of issues impacting Microsoft Edge reliability in the last few builds.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in opening a new tab in Microsoft Edge in recent builds potentially taking an unexpectedly long time.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge file downloads to secondary drives failing in recent flights.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in SVG images on certain websites not rendering in Microsoft Edge.
  • When dragging a website from the address bar in Microsoft Edge in order to pin it to the favorites bar, you will now see the favicon and website name follow your mouse as you drag.
  • Fixed an issue from recent builds where content copied to the clipboard using Web Notes in Microsoft Edge couldn't be pasted.
  • Fixed an issue where certain PDF files wouldn't display their context menu correctly in Microsoft Edge.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge potentially crashing on launch when using roaming profiles.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in not being able to scroll components of certain websites when viewed in Microsoft Edge despite a scrollbar being visible.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in not being able to use Flash on certain sites in Microsoft Edge in recent builds.
  • Fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Edge crashing recently if you clicked on the page when in caret mode.
  • Fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge in recent builds where clicking on link's in the 'Ask Cortana' sidebar might open the page inside the sidebar instead of the main window.
  • Fixed an issue from the last two builds where certain websites didn't load in Microsoft Edge, although the name of the website was correct in the tab.
  • Fixed an issue from the last two builds where an unexpected grey rectangle was visible in Microsoft Edge settings next to the word Settings.
  • Fixed an issue from the last build where processes in Task Manager only showed at most 100mb of memory used.
  • Fixed an issue where Narrator wouldn't say anything if you were to use the arrow keys to navigate through text typed into Command Prompt.
  • Fixed an issue an issue where the touch keyboard might be a pixel-width up from the bottom of the screen if the display scaling wasn't 100%, leading to the keyboard unexpectedly dismissing if you tapped that area.
  • Fixed an issue an issue resulting in the one-handed touch keyboard being unexpectedly large in recent builds.
  • Fixed an issue from recently builds where shapewriting in the touch keyboard would stop showing text candidates if you were using it, dismissed the keyboard, re-invoked the keyboard, and tried to start shapewriting again.
  • Fixed an issue from recent builds impacting Emoji Panel invocation reliability.

Today’s update bumps the Windows 10 build number for PCs from 17083 (made available to testers on January 24) to build 17093.

This build has a whopping 16 known issues:

  • Longer-than-normal delays during install at the 88 percent mark. Some delays are as long as 90 minutes before moving forward. Please be patient as the install will complete successfully.
  • Some PCs will fail to resume from hibernate requiring a hard reboot to recover.
  • If you install a font product from the Microsoft Store, then later install a new build (feature update), the Store package will remain installed, but the fonts within the package are not installed. Until this is fixed, the temporary workaround is to uninstall the product from the Apps page in Settings, then re-acquire the product from the Store.
  • If an East Asian keyboard is the only input method on your system the touch keyboard will show an English layout with no IME on/off key. Until this is fixed, the workaround is to add a second keyboard language from the Region & Language Settings page, or to use the IME mode button in the taskbar.
  • We're investigating an issue where the Japanese IME sometimes can't turn on in UWP apps. If you encounter this issue switch to a Win32 application (e.g. Notepad), turn the IME on there, then switch back to the UWP app.
  • 3 and 4 finger gestures on the touchpad have become unresponsive starting with the previous flight.
  • Windows Hello will fail to work on Surface Laptops with this build.
  • Plugging in an external optical drive (DVD) will cause an Explorer.exe crash.
  • Settings will crash if you open the Themes Settings page.
  • Buttons on Game bar are not centered correctly.
  • In some games—such as Destiny 2 and Fortnite—mouse and keyboard input will still go to the game while Game bar is open.
  • Selecting a notification after taking a screenshot or game clip opens the Xbox app's home screen instead of opening the screenshot or game clip.
  • After Game bar closes, the mouse cursor resets to the position it was in when Game bar was opened.
  • Keyboard and mouse input may not work correctly in Game bar when playing a first person game (e.g. Minecraft). Alt+Tab out of and into the game should fix this.
  • In the text box for Mixer stream title, using non-character keys (e.g. Tab, Delete, Backspace, etc.) may cause the game to hang for a few seconds.
  • Bringing up Game bar using the Xbox button on an Xbox One controller doesn't work in some games.

I can’t remember the last build that had this many known issues. As always, don’t install this on your production machine.

Heartland Tech Weekly: What makes a city attractive for tech workers

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 06:12 PM PST

This week on the Heartland Tech channel, we published an essay from Josh Driver, the founder of an Indiana software startup and a member of the LGBTQ community, on how his state can create a more welcoming environment for businesses. There’s a few sentences I’d like to highlight in particular:

“Personally, as the founder of a tech startup, I want to know that Indiana has my back. You can give me tax credits and incentives all day long, but I’m looking for authentic support. I need to know that the tech talent I need to grow my business is welcomed here.”

This is a sentiment that I hear repeatedly from the founders of tech startups, as well as organizations that seek to make their states more startup friendly: Tax incentives aren’t enough. The states and cities that are going to pull ahead — as tech companies, from industry giants like Google and Amazon to young startups, look to add more jobs outside of Silicon Valley — are the ones that recognize that building a tech hub is about more than just wooing businesses, but also wooing the people who will help grow the business.

What does it look like to create a good environment for tech talent? It depends upon who you ask, but a few answers I hear cited most often are: a place that’s welcoming to tech workers from various backgrounds, a place with a strong school system that middle and senior-level workers will be comfortable sending their children to, and a place that allows workers to live an active lifestyle.

We’ll be publishing a few more stories in the coming week on the Heartland Tech channel on what various companies have learned about what it takes to bring tech talent to Heartland cities. We’ll also be discussing the topic at VentureBeat’s Blueprint conference on March 5-7 in Reno, Nevada.

As always, please send news tips or feedback to me via email, and be sure to bookmark our Heartland Tech Channel.

Thanks for reading,

Anna Hensel

Featured Video

Please enjoy this video from GeekWire, "GeekWire interviews Pittsburgh's mayor on Amazon HQ2 and more"

From the Heartland Tech Channel

Google’s Jesse Haines to discuss the future of workforce training at VentureBeat’s Blueprint event 

VB EVENT: Google's Jesse Haines is one of the speakers at VentureBeat's inaugural Blueprint conference, taking place on March 5-7 in Reno, Nevada. At Blueprint, speakers including Haines will discuss how tech companies can create higher paying jobs across the U.S. and expand economic opportunity for all. In October 2017, Google launched a new initiative called Grow with Google, […]

Read the full story 

What cities with fast-growing tech companies have in common

In order to build a strong regional economy, it's not enough for city and state leaders to simply vocalize their support for local businesses. They also have to find ways to create an environment where those local businesses can grow and add a lot of jobs quickly. A new report from the Brookings Institution sheds […]

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Why 2018 will be a good year for Midwest startups 

GUEST: You likely already have plans for what you'll be doing in 2018. Maybe you've already bought tickets for an epic trip or committed yourself to getting fit this year. Sounds like fun! But maybe 2018 is also the year that you should start the business you've always dreamed of. Whether you know exactly what kind of business […]

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Amazon fulfillment centers don't lead to a noticeable increase in jobs, study finds

How great an effect a tech company has when it moves into a new town comes down to one thing: jobs. And it's not just how many jobs the company itself creates but how its presence then prompts other businesses to hire from that area. For many Heartland cities, the latest tech arrival is Amazon, […]

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Beyond VB

High-profile investors like Jeff Bezos, Ray Dalio, and Meg Whitman are flocking to a $150 million fund nurturing startups in overlooked American cities

As AOL cofounder Steve Case read author JD Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which is about the struggles of escaping poverty in Ohio via Kentucky transplants, he saw a slice of American life he’d been trying to improve for the last several years. (via Business Insider)

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People are scared of tech because we're telling them to be scared, says Stripe CEO Patrick Collison

The only thing people have to fear about tech is fear itself, said Patrick Collison, who was a special guest at Recode and MSNBC's first town hall event for the series "Revolution," which aired on the cable network last night. (via Recode)

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Google to hire thousands in 9 states 

Google is going on a U.S. hiring spree, increasing its footprint outside of Silicon Valley. (via CNN Money)

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When Big Tech comes to town: Pittsburgh tries to repair Uber deal and apply lessons to Amazon bid

When Uber started eyeing this city as a testing ground for self-driving cars back in 2016, Mayor Bill Peduto decided to "roll out the red carpet," in his own words. Uber delivered the promised star power, elevating Pittsburgh's image and thrusting the former steel town's revitalization into the limelight. But beyond notoriety, Uber didn't deliver everything Peduto expected. (via Geek Wire)

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Dandara’s mobile approach works, and I can’t stop playing it

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 06:01 PM PST

We have no shortage of beautiful pixel-art games on PC and consoles, and you can add Dandara to that list. This Metroid-style adventure from developer Long Hat House is alluring with a stylish hero and retro-Brazilian color scheme. But while I tried it because of its looks, I keep playing because of its kinetic movement, deliberate combat, and steady progression

Dandara is out now on PC, Nintendo Switch,  PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and iOS for $15. It is another example of a recent trend where indie developers build something for mobile first, but then release it on other devices at the same time. That’s something we saw with the one-touch controls in Never Stop Sneakin’, and now it’s in Dandara in the form of its point-to-point walljumping movement.

You don’t run and jump in Long Hat House’s legendary tale; instead, you point in a direction and then hit the jump button to leap to an opposing surface. This may sound limiting, and it is, but this is good. Dandara can usually predict where you want to go, so you only need to shoot out in a general direction. You can also jump fast from one surface to another to get through areas in a couple of seconds.

That movement plays into one of my favorite aspects of Dandara: the combat. You cannot spam attacks. Your weapon doesn’t work when you are jumping, and you have to charge it up to get a shot off. Charging only takes a second or two, but that’s enough to force you to think about when you have to evade and when you have time to attack. In a room with multiple enemies, this means you have to stick and move. You can jump to a surface, charge up and get a shot off, and then you will have to jump almost immediately because another projectile is incoming at any moment. This creates battles that are simultaneously frantic and slow-paced.

It’s such an interesting departure from other Metorid-style combat systems, that it is one of the main reasons I continue to play. I’m seeking out encounters because they feel so cool.

The other big reason that I can’t put Dandara down is that it has done a fine job with the progression inherent to these games. I’m starting to piece how the map fits together in my head, and I kinda always have an idea of where I need to go next. And I want to get to those unexplored rooms because they contain powerups and currency that will enable me to upgrade and unlock new powers. Then I can unlock even more areas of the map to find even more powerups.

While that loop isn’t as tight as it is in the exquisitely crafted SteamWorld Dig 2, it’s still satisfying and worth your time.

Mixer adds Fortnite to its NFL Red Zone-like HypeZone streams

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 04:47 PM PST

One of the coolest features on livestreaming platform Mixer is expanding to a new game today. Microsoft revealed that it has added a HypeZone channel to Mixer for Epic Games’ Fortnite: Battle Royale. This livestream actively switches from one Mixer broadcaster to another. Like the NFL Red Zone, HypeZone Fortnite switches to players who are close to getting a win.

This makes the HypeZone a great way to discover new livestreamers and to see a lot of different kinds of playstyles during the most crucial time of a match. Check it out for yourself right here:

Mixer already had a HypeZone PUBG channel for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and both of these livestreams work the same way. The HypeZone knows which active streamers are closest to getting a win in the 100-person last-player-standing shooter. When it switches to a new broadcaster, you know you’re going to see some intense fighting. And the HypeZone sticks with a player until they win or they die. When the action is over, HypeZone Fortnite swaps in someone new so that you have very little downtime.

I’ve been watching HypeZone Fortnite and PUBG throughout the day, and I’m finding it addictive. The short bursts of action rarely last more than a couple of minutes, and that plays well into my short attention span. It never gives me the chance to grow bored, and it’s something I could see leaving on all day long.

Did Valve gank the rights to DotA from its creators? Well … it’s complicated

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 04:30 PM PST

GUEST:

The success of a video game franchise is often defined by the community of players that coalesce around the franchise's games. These players aren't just customers or simple fans; they provide valuable advertising on social media and content streaming platforms, and they often serve as wellsprings of constructive feedback and creativity that help shape future iterations of some of the industry's most popular games. It should come as no surprise then that game developers are exploring ways to encourage and incorporate player-generated content into their overall business strategy.

In many ways, this development is a win-win for both players and game developers.  But it can create unique and sometimes unforeseen challenges when it comes to protecting the copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property that serve as the bedrock of any successful game. The DotA (or "Defense of the Ancients") franchise provides a poignant example of how complex these challenges can become, as the conflict over ownership of DotA and its spinoffs continues to this day.

In an ongoing lawsuit, Blizzard and Valve joined forces to allege that game developers uCool and Lilith Games copied intellectual property from DotA without permission. In response, uCool and Lilith argued Blizzard and Valve had no right to pursue their claims because the content in question was created by players — and thus, Blizzard or Valve didn’t own it.

Last year, a federal court allowed the lawsuit to proceed, rejecting (for now) the argument that Blizzard and Valve lacked the ability to sue. But the case, which is ongoing, highlights some important questions. In an environment where player-created or community-generated content is seen as increasingly valuable, can game companies claim ownership of that crowdsourced content? If so, what steps should companies take to ensure they are well-positioned to protect that content from copying without being “ganked” (sneakily assassinated) in the early stages of litigation?

To better understand the answers to these questions, one should first understand the DotA universe, its player community, and the legal issues addressed in the federal court's recent ruling.

The rise of DotA

The DotA games trace their origin to Blizzard's blockbuster hit, Warcraft III, a computer strategy game in which players controlled armies of different fantastical species aiming to dominate the fictional world of Azeroth. The game included an editing tool called the World Editor that enabled players to create new battle maps, settings, characters, storylines and gameplay rules. It allowed players to share these modifications with the rest of the online gaming community.

Importantly, Warcraft III's end-user license agreement (EULA) did not assign the intellectual property rights of content created in the World Editor from the players back to Blizzard. It did, however, prohibit players from using their creations for commercial purposes.

In 2002, a particularly ambitious player named "Eul" created a mod for Warcraft III called "Defense of the Ancients." The mod significantly altered the gameplay, rules, sequences and character roster of “Warcraft III,” making DotA almost a new game. (As a mod, DotA required a copy of Warcraft III in order for players to play it.) Eul's mod placed a heavy emphasis on the special "hero" characters from Warcraft III in addition to including a number of new hero characters.

Dota was a huge hit in the Warcraft community, inspiring dozens of other spin-off mods created by avid fans. Building on one of these spinoffs, a different player known as "Guinsoo" released his own mod called "DotA Allstars." It included a series of new characters, spells and improvements, many of which were suggested by other players.

In 2004, Eul decided to retire from managing DotA and announced that "DotA is now open source," and that anyone who wished to release a new version of DotA may do so without his consent as long as they give him "a nod in the credits to [their] map." Soon after, Guinsoo also stepped down, leaving players "Icefrog" and "Neichus" to manage future DotA development. At this point, the game had attracted so many new fans that a forum dedicated to DotA was seeing over one million visitors every month, with a million page views every day.

Seizing on this popularity, Valve began development of its own standalone game, Dota 2, based on DotA and DotA Allstars. Valve eventually hired Eul and Icefrog, who agreed to assign any rights they had in DotA and DotA Allstars over to Valve. Guinsoo was eventually hired by Riot Games (of "League of Legends" fame). Like Eul and Icefrog, Guinsoo assigned his rights to DotA Allstars to his new employer. Riot Games later assigned those rights to Blizzard.

After Blizzard and Valve sue, uCool moves to dismiss

In September 2015, Blizzard and Valve jointly filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against California-based uCool and China-based Lilith Games. They asserted that uCool's "Heroes Charge" and Lilith's "DotA Legends" mobile games infringed on the copyrights in DotA and Dota 2. Blizzard's and Valve's amended complaint alleged various forms of infringement, but paid particular attention to the similarities between characters in the games at issue. uCool responded by moving for summary judgment against Valve, arguing that the company could not prove that it owned all of the copyrights in DotA and DotA Allstars that it needed in order to sue.

uCool’s arguments focused on the DotA and DotA Allstars characters — specifically, whether Valve owned the copyrights to all of the characters it asserted against uCool and Lilith. The company contended that many of the characters allegedly copied from DotA and DotA Allstars never belonged to Eul, Guinsoo, or Iceforg, but were instead created by other fans. uCool pointed to evidence that many of DotA and DotA Allstar's characters — including their appearance, abilities and backstories — were based on concepts and suggestions that fans submitted to Eul, Guinsoo and Icefrog. According to uCool, this meant the fans — not Eul, Guinsoo or Icefrog — owned the copyrights in many of the characters asserted in Valve's lawsuit. Under this theory, Valve would have needed to obtain separate assignments from each creator in order to assert the fan-created characters as part of its lawsuit.

uCool also argued that DotA and DotA Allstars were properly viewed as "collective works" — works that take others' copyrightable expression (e.g., the game characters) and combine them into a single package, like a newspaper or an encyclopedia. Under this characterization, Eul, Guinsoo and Icefrog only owned rights in the selection and arrangements of characters in DotA and DotA Allstars, respectively; they did not own the rights to the underlying characters. Again, this theory would have required Valve to obtain assignments from the characters' creators — something it did not have. The crowdsourced nature of the DotA and DotA Allstar's characters raised an important question: In assessing ownership, should a court's analysis focus on the individual characters, or the overall game? In denying uCool's motion for summary judgment, the court offered a clear answer: The focus is on the game as a whole.

Dismissal denied

First, the court rejected uCool's argument that DotA and DotA Allstars were collective works. Referring to Section 101 of the Copyright Act, the court concluded that each version of DotA and DotA Allstars should be viewed as a unitary whole with "inseparable" and "interdependent parts." Even though characters are independently copyrightable, the court noted that the "[h]eroes do battle in teams on fictional battlefields — together. They do not stand alone in self-contained bubbles."

Second, the court rejected uCool's argument that individual fans had authored many of the characters featured in DotA and DotA Allstars, and later asserted as part of Blizzard's and Valve's lawsuit. Drawing on well-established Ninth Circuit precedent in the movie-making context, the court concluded that the "master minds" behind a work — the people who exercise creative control — are considered the work's "authors." It further noted that individual contributions, even if "extremely helpful" or separately copyrightable, do not transform the corresponding contributors into authors of the overall work.

Even if Eul, Guinsoo, and Icefrog solicited and even incorporated fan feedback into DotA and DotA Allstars, the evidence showed that they ultimately decided which suggestions made it into the final games and which did not. Because they exercised creative control over the final product, Eul, Guinsoo, and Icefrog were the games' authors. To interpret ownership any differently, the court concluded, would allow individual contributors to carve out ownership rights in their own contributions, rendering worthless copyright in movies, comic books and video games.

As a result of the court's decision, Valve did not need to obtain assignments from individual fan contributors. Eul's and Icefrog's assignments to Valve would be sufficient so long as they were valid — an issue that was left for the jury to decide.

Takeaways and cautionary tales

The court's denial of uCool's motion highlights the important but sometimes overlooked role that ownership plays in every copyright infringement lawsuit. Would-be claimants should make sure that their chain of title documents are in order to avoid a potentially devastating blow early in a litigation, especially in cases of crowdsourced or user-generated content where ownership is likely to be a contentious issue.

The case also offers a cautionary tale about the importance of EULAs. Recall that Blizzard or Valve might never have been put in this position if Warcraft III's EULA had assigned the rights in any player-created content in the World Editor back to Blizzard. It's unclear whether this was a conscious choice by Blizzard to give fans an ownership stake in the content they create — a trend we see with increasing regularity in current gaming communities. But the message remains the same: Game developers should regularly review their consumer-facing agreements to ensure they meet both the legal and business objectives of the company.

Meanwhile, the DotA dispute shows no signs of slowing down. As of this writing, Lilith has moved to dismiss Blizzard's and Valve's second amended complaint. A number of important aspects of the case remain unresolved, including whether Eul's decision to make DotA "open source" amounted to copyright abandonment — an issue that could severely limit the scope of the lawsuit — and the validity of the relevant assignments.

Although the future of this dispute remains uncertain, one thing is clear: The battle over DotA's Azeroth-inspired in-game assets will have lasting implications on the protection of crowdsourced content and its increasingly-important role in today's gaming communities.

Jennifer Lloyd Kelly is a lawyer at Fenwick & West and chairs the firm's gaming and digital media practice, and is one of the leading authorities on IP issues for video games and mobile apps.

Nicholas A. Plassaras is a lawyer at Fenwick & West and a member of the firm's games team, working closely with video game clients. 

Chieh Tung is a lawyer at Fenwick & West and focuses her practice on privacy and litigation matters for tech and life sciences clients. 

6 jobs that could see an uptick in demand with the rise of AI

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 04:10 PM PST

GUEST:

While fears abound that AI automation will lead to big staff cuts in industries around the world, technology will bring forth a plethora of new jobs and services. Similar to the onslaught of positions created by social media, digital publishing, and ecommerce, the AI revolution has already inspired the creation of new careers.

According to a Gartner report, AI will create 2.3 million jobs by 2020. This number far exceeds the workforce that automation will displace.

More interestingly is that robots will not simply replace workers, but instead will augment employees and tasks.

What will be your job title in the 2020s and beyond? Here are six jobs AI promises to create by 2020.

Machine trainers

Developing artificially intelligent machines requires examples to train on. In order to teach computers how to detect diseases, one needs to present the machine with existing “labeled” cases — e.g. X-ray images with diseased regions marked.

Generating, collecting, and managing relevant data to feed into AI training will create entire careers from entry-level (manual data tagging) to specialized expert-level for domain knowledge-requiring tasks (e.g. preparing legal cases to train an AI judge).

The demand for entry-level and specialist data taggers is already there. When my team works on projects for clients, a well-prepared dataset is a must-have before any modeling takes place.

Even Google understands the need for human involvement in automation. The search engine giant is currently hiring 10,000 workers to clean YouTube and train computer models to do it themselves in the future.

Additionally, once AI is live, it still requires continued training to increase its capabilities and stay current with ever-changing technology.

AI engineers

If you’re looking for an exciting career in an emerging tech field, look no further than a job in AI engineering.

Right now there’s an enormous AI engineering talent shortage in the market, causing wages to reach a median annual salary of $345,000 for a senior AI researcher on DeepMind.

From physics and biology to software engineering, AI — specifically, machine learning — requires a combination of analytical ability and creativity. For those with this skill set, the future looks very bright.

In fact, Gartner claims that by 2020, AI will be incorporated in almost every software product. It will come as pluggable components, as well as custom, tailor-made modules.

AI testers and supervisors

Development teams and tools are currently implementing technology to catch bugs earlier, automatically assessing and correcting code. However, AI isn’t good at commonsense reasoning yet, and it will likely take some time until it gets better. Until then, the machines need help evaluating their decisions.

The machines, even deployed at scale, need extensive quality testing and monitoring, which needs to be carried by humans, according to a White House report.

Software testers play a key role as they are responsible for modeling test workflows. Furthermore, test supervisors are still — and will always be — required to monitor progress objectives and to take over as necessary.

Caretakers and social workers

People will always crave human touch and empathy. AI-based medical developments, such as automatic medical diagnostics, will make modern health care affordable to everyone, including people in developing countries (and it already seems to be 15 percent better than radiologists in cancer diagnosis).

With that in mind we can expect the life expectancy to grow even faster (the UN predicts 81 to be the global average in 2100) — and so will the demand for human care for the elderly.

While AI will take on repetitive and mundane duties, freeing up humans for other activities, the nuances of human interaction in health care are not so easily replicated.

Sales and marketing managers

What computers lack in empathy, they make up for in surfacing insights and predictions. As such, AI tools may render some marketing and sales jobs obsolete.

But not all.

AI is more likely to change how marketers work than to replace them. For example, marketing managers have a very low chance of being automated. In fact, their roles may become more efficient and effective because of AI’s ability to automate certain tasks.

Entrepreneurs

After a startling 36 percent drop in U.S. startup formation over the past decade, things are finally looking up for entrepreneurs — and you can thank AI for that.

In addition to the talent needed to create AI software and solutions, every technological revolution gives people more freedom. As people develop hobbies and pursue dreams at a higher rate, we'll see a strong rise in entrepreneurship activity.

According to Inc Magazine, “more small business owners will embrace AI as an important competitive tool, using it to automate mundane administrative tasks, unlock customer insights, and more.”
In the future, more time and a lowered entry barrier for starting your own business will cause more people to follow their entrepreneurial ambitions.

Jobs of the future

Emerging technologies have not only created departments and jobs within companies, but have also created entirely new businesses. The demand for technical skills will increase with automation: When robot parts fail, a human is needed to fix it, just as driverless cars will still require mechanics.

Moreover, if you observe the major epochs of human development, you’ll notice a paradigm shift. Eras alternate between emphasizing the humanism or analytical/mathematical talent.
With computational power and analytical thinking becoming a commodity thanks to AI, the economy will be poised to appreciate creativity and human compassion — which will arguably be the very last human skills to be successfully replicated by a machine.

Mariusz Kierski is CEO and managing partner at Sigmoidal, an award-winning AI, machine learning, and data science consulting firm.

Kerbal Space Program gets Making History expansion next month

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 02:46 PM PST

Take-Two’s Private Division publishing label revealed today that it has a new Kerbal Space Program add-on in the works. The Making History Expansion will (ahem) launch for the PC version March 13. It introduces a number of features including a mission editor and a mission pack inspired by important moments in actual space flight.

Developer Squad, which Take-Two acquired last year, is working on Making History right now, and this is the first expansion for the rocketry simulator. The studio is aiming to keep Kerbal fresh for the long-term because Take-Two thinks it has potential to grow more popular over the next several years.

"Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion will provide players with an entirely new set of tools and content that fundamentally change how the game is played," Private Division president of production Allen Murray said. "We can't wait to see the creativity of the KSP community around the world as they create and share missions."

The mission editor is the big feature in Making History. It enables players to edit together their own missions, but then they can share it with friends and other KSP players. This will enable players to create their own epic space quests that others can experience as well.

As for the History Pack, Squad has not provided any specific examples, but it sounds like you will get a chance to spacewalk in the steps of NASA astronauts. To enable more realism, Squad is also introducing new ship components and space suits inspired by humanity’s space  race from the middle of the last century.

Dragon City and Monster Legends show Take-Two’s strategy works on mobile, too

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 02:33 PM PST

Take-Two Interactive’s big earners are blockbusters like Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto V and NBA 2K18, but it’s also making inroads with the free-to-play mobile market. In an earnings report for Q3 of fiscal year 2018, it pointed today to social games Dragon City and Monster Legends as top contributors.

The company acquired developer Social Point last February for its popular web and mobile games. Dragon City and Monster Legends are the studio’s top titles, and since launching on iOS and Android in 2013, they have raked in over 180 million downloads. Social Point will be releasing new content updates for both games this quarter, and it’s working on expanding its portfolio of games as well.

Dragon City is No. 23 in the simulation games category on Google Play and No. 17 on the Apple App Store in the role-playing game category, according to market researcher App Annie. Monster Legends is similarly ranked in the same categories at No. 18 on Google Play and No. 36 on the Apple App Store.

Consumers spent $48.3 billion last year on mobile, surpassing PC and console game revenue for the first time. Take-Two’s previous mobile efforts from 2K Games have seen varied success. WWE SuperCard is ranked No. 91 in card games on the Apple App Store and No. 97 in the same category on Google Play. Its WWE 2K title is more successful, sitting at No. 4 in the sports category on Google Play.

It makes sense that Take-Two has been eyeing the mobile market. The company frequently rolls out new content for its titles, like GTA Online’s World War II-inspired dogfight update in November. And Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has also said that microtransactions are an integral part of the company’s core strategy.

Understanding chatbot marketing in the ever-changing world of Facebook

Posted: 07 Feb 2018 02:10 PM PST

GUEST:

When Mark Zuckerberg speaks, digital entrepreneurs and marketers listen very carefully. It’s no surprise, then, that when he announced a major change in the Facebook News Feed algorithm during the company’s January earnings presentation, the world of social media immediately reacted with extreme attention, some raised eyebrows, and a bit of anxiety.

Zuckerberg explained that Facebook would be making changes in the way the site prioritizes stories and articles in the main feed in an effort to “make sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.” He said this change will reduce the amount of marketing and promotional materials users see in their feeds so they see more content posted by their friends.

While it’s amazing how Facebook is able to present its changes as audience benefits when they’re in perfect alignment with the corporation’s business objectives, we want to focus here on the effects that this changed attitude toward promotional and marketing content will have on Messenger and chatbots. Their growth is exponential and “more than 2 billion messages are sent between businesses and customers every month,” according to Zuckerberg.

Understanding how Facebook sees these tools and how it wants companies and businesses to use them could determine whether a marketer creates a successful and rewarding chatbot marketing strategy or drives their page toward a ban.

Facebook is no longer the Wild West

In the early days of Facebook, companies like Zynga were able to capitalize on the platform’s explosive growth and lax approach to catching marketing and spam. They acquired extremely large user bases on the cheap. This symbiotic relationship between a young and ambitious social network and companies that produced addicting games, content, and apps was beneficial for both. Now things have changed.

Facebook’s focus is no longer on expansion and growth at all costs. Rather, the company is focused on keeping existing users engaged, active, and happy with what they see in their feeds and elsewhere on the platform. This means that its approach toward “aggressive” marketing tactics is now much more strict, including on relatively new and still untested (marketing-wise) systems and tools like Messenger and chatbots. In other words, while in the good old days Facebook most likely erred on the side of permissiveness, now it will definitely shoot first and ask questions later, often with very little warning.

Chatbots are not ’email on steroids’

This shatters the thinking that many marketers had when they first started using the Messenger APIs: “This is email on steroids.” One might assume that as soon as a user interacts with a bot, they are immediately captured and all their conversations can be recorded, making it very easy to segment, track, and target them with laser-focused marketing messages deeply linked to their behavior and choices. But that’s not the way things work.

There is a very specific time window (24 hours, plus another 24 for a “reminder” message) during which a bot can send one (and only one) unsolicited promotional message to somebody who engaged in a chat, and that is all.

Every other communication started by the bot must not be related to a promotion but rather contain news, updates, or helpful messages. What counts is that just a couple of spam reports are enough to get a page or account suspended — remember that.

You are on rented land

The whole point is that chatbots, like Facebook pages, Twitter followers, Linkedin profiles, and Pinterest boards, are all built on “rented land” where the strategic objectives of the “landlord” very rarely align perfectly with the goals and desires of the business owner or marketer. Dismissing all social media for marketing purposes as a waste of time would be foolish, yet this thought must always be present in the back of a marketer’s mind. It should push them to use these platforms and tools as different components of well-balanced marketing campaigns where leads acquired or impressions generated must be “owned” and never “rented.”

Follow rules, use the tools

What all this boils down to is that the best and most effective approach for successfully using chatbots in a sound social media strategy is to follow the rules and use the tools that the platform makes available for marketers.

Facebook has a particular understanding of how chatbots can be an invaluable resource for businesses on its platform. For this reason, the company consistently releases new features to boost the benefits of Messenger bots. For example, one of the most exciting new releases is the Customer Chat Plugin, a tool that allows website owners to integrate Messenger bots directly into their web pages. This is just like a traditional live chat widget, making it easy to engage users and respond automatically to their questions. When a company designs the bot well, it can also lead users through the customer journey to conversion. This is exactly what bots for Messenger were created for, and this is what Facebook ultimately wants businesses to experience.

So, in the end, will Facebook’s algorithmic changes and general attitude toward “free marketing” make chatbots useless for businesses? Absolutely not. Are bots then the Holy Grail of direct marketing and the easy road to riches for smart agencies? Also no.

Messenger bots are a precious piece of the overall digital marketing puzzle. They are an extremely effective tool for leveraging the largest digital community in existence, and marketers must use them wisely in order to achieve success.

Silvio Porcellana is an entrepreneur, marketer, and coder working on the Interweb since 1999. He created The Maven System to help fellow entrepreneurs build successful online businesses.
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