The Iranian government is closing the nation's borders on messaging apps.
The nation has ruled that chat apps operating in the country must store all data pertaining to Iranians within the country, according to Reuters. Messaging apps have one year to comply with this ruling, and those that don't will be banned in Iran.
This ruling could have a profound effect on apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, which are growing in popularity in the nation. Telegram reportedly has approximately 20 million monthly active users (MAUs) in the nation, which represents about 25% of the population.
The app has surged in popularity in the last 18 months thanks to its high security level for users through end-to-end encryption for all messages sent through the app. Despite this growth, the Iranian government arrested administrators of 20 groups on Telegram in November 2015 for spreading what it considered immoral content.
Encryption on messaging apps continues to be a much-discussed issue, as WhatsApp, iMessage, and Allo (Google's new chat app) have all added end-to-end encryption support. As messaging apps grow in popularity, so too does the demand for user security. End-to-end encryption blocks access to the content of messages for everyone except the parties involved in the chat.
Because of this, it remains unclear if the Iranian government could access user data stored within the nation. Even if it could, it still would not be able to read message content.
Regardless, the decision is another in a line of governments who are trying to control chat apps' operations and growth. A Brazilian court recently shut down WhatsApp, the most popular chat app in the world, for 24 hours within its borders after it refused to hand over user data for an ongoing drug investigation.
On top of this, many chat apps are adding more services, such as online shopping and taxi hailing. If governments can force these apps to provide user data, then users could become extremely hesitant to use these messaging apps for those purposes, or even altogether.
Will McKitterick, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, has compiled a detailed report on messaging apps that takes a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.
In full, this report:
Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:
Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT
The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the future of messaging apps.
Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins and a longtime tech industry analyst, says that growth of internet businesses is slowing down, and that image sharing and messaging apps are the future.
She covered these topics, and more, while delivering a presentation of her 2016 internet trends report at this year's Code Conference (full presentation here). Here are some of the key data points from her talk that you should know about:
It's part of Redmond's revised mobile strategy as it moves away from Windows-based phones.
China's Xiaomi is beefing up its patent portfolio, acquiring 1,500 patents from Microsoft. Xiaomi has also become the latest Android phone maker to sign a deal with Microsoft to preload Office and Skype on its devices.
It's part of Microsoft's revised mobile strategy which focuses on getting its software and services onto iOS and Android devices rather than trying to sway people to Windows-based phones. Microsoft already has deals in place with Samsung, Acer, LG and others.
Xiaomi, meanwhile, has been seen as needing to beef up its patent position, especially if it wants to sell devices in the U.S. The company this month announced plans to sell a set-top box in the U.S. and said it wants to eventually sell phones here. A Xiaomi representative said the patents it bought relate to wireless communications, video, cloud and multimedia.
It's nearly impossible to contact Google for help. No direct email. No phone support. Not even chat. You're basically on your own.
A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.
One of the themes coming out of the recent Google I/O conference was that Google plans to make a more aggressive push into the consumer hardware business. The company announced the Home product, an AI-oriented service to compete with Amazon Echo; a VR headset; and a new smartphone division that will build and ship its modular Ara phones. Former Motorola CEO Rick Osterloh will lead the new hardware division.
In a Recode post last week, Mark Bergen argued that one of the key unanswered questions coming out of I/O is how these exciting new products are going to be distributed. Getting products such as Nexus and Chromecast into consumers’ hands is something Google has "never done well," Bergen wrote, further suggesting that if Google wants to more directly compete with Apple, the company will also need to think about its retail strategy.
It's nearly impossible to contact Google for help. No direct email. No phone support. Not even chat. You're basically on your own.
I agree with Bergen’s points, and would like to take his argument a step further. If Google wants to play more seriously in the consumer realm, the company needs a better consumer-facing customer service infrastructure. If you are a consumer of Google products or services such as Gmail, Maps, or Office-like products such as Docs or Sheets, it is nearly impossible to contact Google for help. No direct email. No phone support. Not even chat. You are basically on your own (there are some exceptions, such as the Google Play Store and Nest). Basically, you are left to search help forums, bulletin boards, and answers to FAQs Google has posted on its site.
Now, I know this is sort of the way of the web. It’s not easy to contact a human being at Mint, Uber, LinkedIn or Facebook, either. However, if consumer hardware is a big part of Google’s future, and it wants to compete more directly with the likes of Apple and Amazon, the company needs to think seriously about how it will provide help and support to its customers.
The customer segment for Android devices, for example, has always tilted toward the younger, geekier, do-it-yourself crowd. By contrast, Apple’s year of free phone support, Genius Bar and Apple Care are significant market differentiators, which many consumers cite in justifying the "Apple Premium."
Amazon customers also cite customer service as one of the company’s hallmarks. All the major service providers, and most consumer tech hardware manufacturers, provide some level of phone support, plus other direct contact options such as email and chat. I’m not saying it’s always good, and many companies make you jump through all sorts of hoops before you can get direct support, but at least it’s there. For the companies who do a good job of it, it’s a market differentiator.
As a side note, if you are an enterprise customer, Google provides excellent product and tech support, via phone and other channels — even for small businesses, where the minimum ante is about $100 per year.
By contrast, Apple’s year of free phone support, Genius Bar and Apple Care are significant market differentiators, which many consumers cite in justifying the "Apple Premium."
Why is there a greater imperative for Google to consider direct consumer support, since the company has certainly done fine up till now without it? There are three reasons, in my view. First, Google is making a bigger push into the consumer hardware segment, so it needs to start thinking differently about the consumer experience, including distribution and support.
Second, Google has focused on making its myriad services work more harmoniously in an integrated fashion. It’s a big focus of Google Now, forthcoming AI and intelligent assistant related products, and some of its current and announced physical products. I suspect that many users "underutilize" the rich features and capabilities of Google products and services because there is so little in the way of initial hand-holding and ongoing support.
And third, if Google is going to be serious about the consumer business, it needs to broaden its base beyond the younger, more tech-savvy crowd, who are a little more accustomed to being "on their own" in the digital world. As an illustration, Android’s share in the U.S. among those over the age of 30 under-indexes its share among younger users and it’s not just about price.
The breadth of products and services Google offers and has in the pipeline is impressive. Though monetization will continue to be heavily dependent on search and advertising, Google is clearly delving deeper into the consumer realm.
But even though Google is a huge part of consumers’ daily lives, consumers don’t have much of a "relationship" with Google. Given some previous missteps in the consumer hardware business, the company needs to rethink distribution and customer support if it hopes to become an important consumer brand on the scale of an Apple or Amazon.
Intelligent/digital/AI assistants are great, but consumers occasionally need an analog assistant.
A leading wireless industry analyst and consultant, Mark Lowenstein is the managing director of Mobile Ecosystem. Most recently, Lowenstein was a member of the senior leadership team at Verizon Wireless, where as vice president of strategy he led the company’s efforts in product and business planning, market segmentation, national pricing and customer intelligence for both consumer and enterprise markets. Reach him @marklowenstein.
It means that for once, the long-time frenemies have aligning philosophies: Microsoft and Apple see the television as the most-desired real estate in the home. And if people want a voice-powered home assistant that can control their connected home appliances, that's where they're going to deliver it.
But Amazon and Google are going in an entirely different direction.
This great philosophical divide, with Microsoft and Apple on one side and Amazon and Google on the other, seems to come from their histories.
Apple and Microsoft got their starts in the early days of the personal computer, decades ago. For most of their histories, "computer" meant "mouse, keyboard, and monitor," in varying configurations.
It wasn't so very long ago that the television seemed like the most logical thing in which to incorporate a computer, given that it's very often the largest screen in the home. And both Apple and Microsoft have strong existing investments in the software developer ecosystem who are already adept at enhancing the capabilities of something with a screen.
Meanwhile, Amazon and Google both rose to prominence in the early days of the internet era, when the network was far more important than any single computer. While both of them have dabbled in device manufacturing, the thing that made Amazon and Google special in the first place was their intelligence they used to power their online services.
Apple and Microsoft are betting that people still want to make the television the center of their lives. Amazon and Google are trying to provide a little more intelligence, everywhere, with or without a screen.
Are Apple and Microsoft too old-fashioned? Or are Amazon and Google too avant-garde? With the whole voice control-slash-conversational interface game still very much in its infancy, there's room for everybody to be right. But as we get more used to talking to our gadgets like they're human, a shakeout seems inevitable.
Most smartphones go to existing customers, with the real growth coming from tablets and other devices.
With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars.
In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones.
That doesn't mean there weren't a lot of phones sold, though, but most smartphones went to existing customers. When it comes to new accounts added, so-called "net adds," things were fairly split among cars, tablets, phones and industrial connections, according to a new report from industry consultant Chetan Sharma.
Companies like Uber and Nordstrom rely on Twilio's service to send text messages and make automated phone calls to customers.
In its IPO prospectus filed on Thursday, Twilio reports that it's not profitable, generating a $35.5 million net loss on $166 million in revenue in 2015. Still, the company says that it's actively investing in growth, with 28.6 million active customer accounts in the quarter ending March 31st, 2016.
The filing says that Twillio will seek to raise $100 million, though that amount is typically just a placeholder that is likely to increase as the company nears its public market debut.
Founded in 2008, Twilio has raised $233 million in venture capital in its lifetime, from investors including Salesforce Ventures, Amazon, and Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital. Twilio had most recently raised $130 million in a July 2015 round led by T. Rowe Price.
Twilio will list on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol "TWLO."
The company that connects Uber riders to drivers will be the second offering of the year.
The second tech IPO process of 2016 got under way today as Twilio, a cloud-based software system to add calling and texting features to mobile apps, filed to sell shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol TWLO.
Twilio said it plans to offer $100 million worth of shares, but that figure is likely a placeholder that will change as the process unfolds. The company had raised nearly $234 million in venture capital investments from firms including Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures.
The filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Twilio finished 2015 with a $35.5 million loss on revenue of $167 million. For the year, it listed research and development costs of $42.6 million and a combined $85.3 million in operating expenses.
Revenue in the quarter ended March 31 was $59.3 million, with a net loss of $6.4 million.
The company said in the filing that as of March it had 28,654 active accounts. Its customers include Uber, which uses Twilio's capabilities to connect riders and drivers with calls and text messages within the ride-hailing app, and Airbnb, which similarly connects hosts with renters. Other customers named in the filing include retailer Nordstrom, cloud marketing company HubSpot and Zendesk, the cloud-based customer support service.
Bessemer, whose investments were led by Byron Deeter, is Twilio's largest shareholder, owning 28.5 percent of its shares. CEO Jeff Lawson owns about 12 percent. Redpoint Ventures owns a little more than 4 percent.
Tech IPOs paused in the early months of the year as markets briefly swooned and valuations of publicly held cloud software companies like Salesforce.com, Workday and others fell by considerable margins. The first tech offering of the year was for Secureworks, the Dell-owned security company, which listed a 20 percent stake on the Nasdaq exchange. Since pricing at $14 a share last month, it has so far traded below that level.
Zayo Group confirmed Monday that 21 workers at its U.S. operations were let go in mid April, a tiny fraction of its 3,300 employees worldwide.
The cuts were to reduce redundant positions in operations as the company adjusts to recent acquisitions, Zayo spokeswoman Shannon Paulk said.
“In the U.S., Zayo has made minor workforce adjustments in mid April, which impacted 21 field and outside plant positions due to certain consolidations in those departments and elimination of redundant positions,” she said in an e-mail. “There were a few employees that had their positions restructured/reclassified.”
The company, which employs 660 people in Colorado, will share its latest financial results on Thursday. Previously, Zayo reported a $10.8 million net loss on revenues of $369.6 million during the second quarter, ended Dec. 31, compared to thenet income of $3.8 million on $323.9 million in revenues in second quarter 2014.
Tamara Chuang: tchuang@denverpost.com or visit dpo.st/tamara
Messaging apps are growing by leaps and bounds, and WhatsApp is the leader of the pack, according to a recent SimilarWeb report.
Android device usage data reveals that WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in 109 countries, which represents 58% of the 187 countries covered in the survey. This is actually somewhat surprising considering that the Facebook-owned app actually has far fewer capabilities than its competition.
This actually might work to its advantage, however, in developing markets such as Brazil, India, and Mexico, where data is expensive. The lack of more complex features in WhatsApp means that it is less likely to take up a significant portion of users' monthly data plans.
On the other hand, WhatsApp's popularity could simply mean that users still want to use messenger apps simply to communicate.
Facebook's other chat app, Messenger, placed second overall, as it was the most popular chat app on Android devices in 49 countries. This likely stems from the fact that Facebook users must download a separate app to use Messenger.
Messenger was most popular in mature markets such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia. The key difference from WhatsApp is that Messenger supports more features, such as games, commerce, and chat bots.
Viber is the only other messaging app in the report that was the most popular in at least 10 countries. The app is particularly popular in Eastern European nations such as the Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, where it is reportedly installed on 65% of all Android devices. In the Ukraine, users on average spend at least 16 minutes per session on Viber.
Will McKitterick, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, has compiled a detailed report on messaging apps that takes a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.
In full, this report:
Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:
Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT
The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the future of messaging apps.
Apple will make its software development kits (SDK) open to all third-party developers that want to give Siri access to their apps, The Information reports.
This will make Siri more useful for users, more competitive against rival voice assistants, and will address concerns that the virtual assistant hasn't added any significant features since its launch in 2011.
Opening up Siri's SDK is the first step toward making it a more universal and helpful personal assistant. Although Siri has access to a select few third-party services, such as Yelp, this will be the first time that any developer can integrate their app with the personal assistant. For example, if an iOS user has the Uber app on their phone, they will be able to use Siri to open the app and order a taxi.
But giving Siri access to developers' apps will take some work. Developers will need to build some kind of search-query box into their apps in order to work with Siri's query-based algorithm, according to The Information. Furthermore, it's unclear whether or not Siri will be able to discern between apps that provide similar services, such as Uber and Lyft.
A number of large tech companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have unveiled new features for their intelligent virtual assistants over the past year. In particular, Google unveiled Google Assistant during its I/O conference last week. The concierge service can help users find information online as well as complete tasks such as booking tickets to movies or tables at restaurants. Google is also planning on allowing developers to integrate their apps and services with its voice-assistant through its messaging app, Allo.
Apple has yet to confirm or deny whether the report is true. We expected the company to make an announcement about Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month.
Every subscriber to the BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing newsletter received this story first thing in the morning right to their inbox, along with other insightful and informative content. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.
"The biggest security issue here isn't that the computer is 40 years old, but rather the quality of the lock on the door where the computer is housed," Cris Thomas, a strategist for Tenable Network Security, said in a statement.
Thomas, known in hacker circles by his pseudonym, Space Rogue, was one of the founding members of the legendary hacker collective L0pht. The group famously testified to the US Senate in 1998 that it could take down the internet in 30 minutes.
Interestingly, the nuclear arsenal running on decades-old computers with floppy disks makes it incredibly difficult to hack, a fact that some in the Air Force actually used as an example of why upgrading isn't really necessary.
Thomas said that the IBM Series/1 computer the Pentagon is using to control nukes is most likely air-gapped — meaning it's not connected to the internet or a network that would give remote access — so a hacker would need to be sitting at the terminal to actually do any damage.
He also said the machines are "notoriously reliable" and he wasn't surprised they was still being used.
"As long as they can make regular copies of the software on the 8 inch floppies so that they don't degrade, and they have a ready supply of spare parts and new floppies, there's no reason why the system wouldn't last another 40 years," he said.
There is a caveat: While an outdated machine would make it hard for hackers, it also makes it hard to fix things if something goes wrong, since the coding languages it uses are aging as well. Fewer programmers are around who even know COBOL or FORTRAN, he explained.
Regardless, the report noted that the DoD plans to update "data storage solutions, port expansion processors, portable terminals, and desktop terminals by the end of fiscal year 2017."
As far as smartphones go, ZTE is relatively unknown in the US, but the Chinese company's latest smartphone should help change that.
The new Axon 7 smartphone is ZTE's latest premium flagship smartphone, and it could truly give the Samsung Galaxy S7 a run for its money, even more so than the other big smartphones from LG, HTC, and Motorola.
The Axon 7 offers high-end specs for at least $100 less than other premium flagships from well-known companies.
Check out the Axon 7 to see how it can compete with the latest and greatest Android smartphones.
To design the Axon 7, ZTE collaborated with BMW's design arm Designworks, which also designed the BMW X series and the two-man bobsled for the USA Olympic Bobsledding team.
This unique collaboration resulted in a sleek all-metal phone that looks and feels great. It comes in the gold color option you see here.
Once upon a time there were two totally separate industries: unified communications as a service (UCaaS), the application; and communications platform as a service (CPaaS), the platform. But the distinction between these services is getting fuzzy.
Microsoft's aggressive campaign to get users to download and install the new Windows 10 operating system appears to be accelerating.
Users on Windows 7 and 8.1 are getting pop-up windows, announcing that "Windows 10 is a Recommended Update for this PC," alongside a time when it plans to do the update.
Here's the tricky part, though: As Microsoft itself acknowledges on its support page, clicking on that red X in the upper-right-hand corner doesn't cancel the upgrade; it lets it proceed as planned.
To cancel the upgrade and stay on your existing version of Windows, you want to push the somewhat less obvious “Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel scheduled upgrade" (It's right below the date, in the above screenshot).
As PC World reports, some users are making the mistake of merely clicking the X, and then finding themselves shocked when their PC suddenly runs Windows 10, seemingly without permission.
Microsoft is really accelerating its push to get Windows 10 everywhere, as soon as possible — starting July 30th, Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade offer expires and the operating system will cost $119 and up.
Microsoft has faced accusations of nagging customers to upgrade to the point of serious annoyance, and even claims of upgrading some customers without their permission. There are lots of legit reasons why people might want to stay on Windows 7 or 8, and they'd want to hold off on the upgrade.
So for those holdouts, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: Microsoft promises that it'll stop nagging you about Windows 10 after the free upgrade offer expires. In the meantime, there are free tools like Never 10 that can permanently block the Windows 10 upgrade.
Also, you should know that if you've already gotten Windows 10, you can fall back to your previous version of Windows within 31 days, for free.
A Microsoft spokesperson says:
“With the free Windows 10 upgrade offer ending on July 29th, we want to help people upgrade to the best version of Windows. As we shared in October, Windows 10 will be offered as a ‘Recommended’ update for Windows 7 & 8.1 customers whose Windows Update settings are configured to accept ‘Recommended’ updates. Customers can choose to accept or decline the Windows 10 upgrade.”
Silly you. You thought the mobile patent wars were over.
Chinese telecom giant Huawei said Tuesday it is taking Korean rival Samsung to court over patents related to 4G cellphone standards.
Huawei said it is filing similar suits this week in U.S. federal court and in China, with the litigation covering patents that relate to both cellphones and cellular infrastructure. Huawei said it has been trying to license its vast patent portfolio on fair and reasonable terms with Samsung but has been unable to do so.
"As the holder of a vast portfolio of patents it is our responsibility to ensure that we are compensated for our innovation and likewise that others are compensated for theirs," Huawei Vice President of Strategic and External Affairs Bill Plummer told Recode. "That's the lifeblood of this industry; that's what drives openness and innovation."
In recent months, Huawei has reached deals with Ericsson and Apple on patents, with the Cupertino-based company paying an undisclosed amount in royalties to Huawei.
What's unique about the case is this time it is a Chinese company doing the suing. In general, Chinese companies have found themselves more often on the defensive with regards to patents, though Huawei prides itself on the billions of dollars it spends on research and development.
The company says it has 80,000 people in research and development, investing $9.2 billion annually — that's 15 percent of global sales — and has more than 50,000 patents globally.
Samsung has found itself in patent battles before, of course, including its long-running dispute with Apple, which it has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A Samsung representative was not immediately available for comment.
Update: Below is a copy of the publicly available (and significantly redacted) version of the U.S. lawsuit. The most interesting thing about it is that not only are some details hidden from public view, but even one of the causes of action is blacked out. Huawei is not only suing over patent infringement but also for another claim that is apparently too secret for the world to know.
The world's first single-serve, pod-based vaporizer system is coming to market in early 2017. Dubbed the CannaCloud, it's essentially the Keurig of cannabis.
The CannaCloud, made by Boston-based startup CannaKorp, could bring a level of precision and ease to marijuana consumption that could help elevate pot above its crunchy, hippie stigma, if the device finds mainstream success.
Here's how CannaCloud works: The user inserts a pre-measured cup of marijuana into a travel mug-like canister. With the press of a button, the canister heats the marijuana and fills with vapor in less than a minute. A plastic mouthpiece opens a one-way valve that releases the vapor. Voilà.
While the comparable Pax 2, dubbed the "iPhone of vaporizers," boasts minimalist design and an incredible build quality — users have to pack the devices themselves. The CannaCloud system is possibly the first to offer scale-weighted, pre-packaged dosages of Mary Jane.
If using the CannaCloud sounds similar to popping a K-Cup into a Keurig machine, that's because CannaKorp has two former executives from the leading single-serve coffee maker company sitting at the helm.
Users will be able to select the strain and strength of the CannaCups at one of CannaKorp's 50 partnering dispensaries across the country, and may eventually be able to buy a subscription through the company website.
This is good news for anyone who lights up, from patients to recreational stoners.
Many marijuana products now come labeled with ingredients and an exact THC dosage, which prevents users from consuming an amount that makes them feel uncomfortable. But research shows these labels can be inaccurate. Lab tests on various edible marijuana products, for example, have shown the amount of THC can be far higher or lower than what is promised on the label.
While many manufacturers and dispensaries tout their use of independent labs to ensure quality, CannaKorp's high-tech system could introduce an unprecedented level of consistency.
"When you pick up one of the pods, you're able to read the brand, strength, and strain," Dave Manly, chairman of CannaKorp, told Tech Insider back in November. "Every time you do it, it's going to be the same."
This kind of luxury comes at a premium. The CannaCloud will retail for $149, roughly half the cost of the Pax 2 vaporizer. But a single-use pod, which contains only 0.4 grams of marijuana (the amount you'd find in a pre-roll joint), will run $9.99 each. That's about double the cost of a pre-roll joint in California.
CannaKorp closed a seed round of $1.58 million in April to jump-start production. The Boston Globe reports the company expects to ship in early 2017, focusing on the medicinal market first.
"One of our dreams is that someday you'll go into your CVS or Walgreens, and CannaCups will be right there on the shelf, much like cough medicine," Manly says. "We may be a ways away from that. But I think as things evolve and people understand cannabis better, I think it could be mainstream and we'll be right there with a consumer product."
Microsoft is taking an ax to its smartphone business.
The American tech company is cutting nearly 2,000 jobs, it announced Wednesday, including 1,350 from Finland as it ceases phone design and production in the country.
The Finland layoffs were reported earlier by the Finnish press. After years of partnership, Microsoft acquired Nokia's smartphone business in 2014, giving it a presence in the country. Steve Ballmer, then Microsoft's CEO, said before the acquisition that Finland would become the "hub and the centre for our phone R&D."
But Microsoft's phone business has struggled to eat into the market share of the major players Google and Apple, and Microsoft has since moved away from the Nokia brand, selling off its featurephone business earlier this month.
According to research from Gartner, Microsoft now accounts for less than 1% of the global smartphone business, down markedly on last year.
Microsoft executive Terry Myerson informed employees of the layoffs in an email seen by The New York Times, saying the company needed "to be more focused in our phone hardware efforts." There will be up to 1,850 layoffs in total.
In a statement, CEO Satya Nadella said: "We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation — with enterprises that value security, manageability, and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same ... We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms."
As The Times, points out, this is just the latest in a line of cuts targeting the company's smartphone business. Microsoft laid off 18,000 people in 2014, followed by another 7,800 last year.
Mitel has overcome one major hurdle holding back the completion of its planned acquisition of Polycom: The company received the official okay from the Federal Trade Commission late last week.
Sources tell Efrati that the company is building a voice-activated device powered through its virtual assistant, Siri, that could let people ask questions or complete activities like setting a timer or playing music.
The market for such home appliances, powered by artificially intelligence-enabled virtual assistants is heating up.
At the same time, Apple is also reportedly preparing to start letting outside developers make their services available through Siri. For example, imagine asking Siri to find you a restaurant, which it can already suggest via Yelp, but then also asking it to book a reservation, too, which might happen through OpenTable.
Sounds pretty similar to Viv, a new digital assistant service made by Siri's original creators which shines because of its ability to seamlessly integrate with a bunch of different services like Venmo, Hotels.com, and Uber.
This "conversation as a platform" format is all the rage in Silicon Valley right now, with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and a slew of startups all rushing to find new ways to make it easier for users to connect to all the services they need through a single interface or chat. It would make sense that Apple would want to make sure Siri kept up with the competition.
The Force is definitely with Candace Payne. The viral video star appeared on CBS's "The Late Late Show" on Monday night and got some major "Star Wars" surprises.
"I only had a few minutes before I had to get my kids from school," the stay-at-home mom told host James Corden. "I wanted to prove to all my Facebook friends and family that that mask was mine... I knew the moment that [my kids] saw it, they were going to take it from me. And I'm like, 'I didn't buy it for you, little kids.'"
Needless to say, her joy over the mask was infectious. The video got more than 140 million views over a few days, becoming the most-viewed video on the new Facebook Live platform, and the Chewbacca mask sold out at Kohl's. The big box store thanked Payne by sending her a bunch of "Star Wars" gear.
But Payne joked that she wants something more for her achievement.
"I'm quite un-athletic. So I feel like if I broke a record, I need a medal or something," she said. "Or at least, I need to sing 'We Are the Champions' everywhere that I go."
Corden didn't have a medal, but he did have a couple gifts that made Payne lose her mind. First, he surprised her with "Star Wars" director J.J. Abrams, who joined her and Corden in a sketch.
"That blew my world away today," she said of the director's appearance.
But Corden wasn't done. He also had a note and invitation to hang out from the man who plays Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew.
Today, two very important things happened for the future of the PC as we know it.
First: For the first time ever, low-cost Google Chromebook laptops outsold Apple's Macs during the most recent quarter, analyst firm IDC tells The Verge.
Manufacturers including Dell, Lenovo, and HP sold over 2 million Google-powered Chromebooks combined, versus around 1.76 million Macs, IDC estimates.
Second: those same Google Chromebooks are getting full access to Android's Google Play store, opening the door for those laptops to run a significant portion of the 1.5 million Android apps out in the wild.
For Apple, it's not necessarily great news, but it's not the end of the world, either. Quarter after quarter, Macs have shown sales growth, bucking the overall shrinkage of the PC industry. And Apple has always been a company that's content to completely and profitably own a small piece of a much larger pie.
But for Microsoft, it means that the pressure is on — Google's slow-but-steady attack is bearing some real results, and it's not great news for Windows 10.
Why people like Chrome
The key concept of the Chromebook is simplicity and portability. These devices run Google's mega-lightweight Chrome OS, which is little more than a web browser. That works fine, given that the vast majority of stuff that most people do on computers is based around the browser, anyhow.
That limitation becomes a strength, too: Because so little data is stored locally, it means that nothing is lost if you break or lose a Chromebook. It's all in the cloud, no matter what. And because the technical requirements for running a browser are so low, you still get reasonable performance, even from a sub-$200 laptop.
That combination of low cost and resiliency is an offer that lots of schools, especially, can't refuse. Chromebooks continue to see their strongest growth in the educational space.
Add Android apps to that mix, and it gets even better. Android is the most popular operating system in the world. Any software today is likely going to be available on Android, the web, or both. It means that for Chromebooks, and indeed any Chrome OS device, there's basically nothing you won't be able to do.
Google is basically taking its wildly successful smartphone operating system and smashing it together with Chrome OS to make it a more useful desktop operating system.
Microsoft is taking the opposite tack with Windows.
Where Windows 10 is going
With its Universal Windows Platform iniative, Microsoft is trying to convince developers — mainly the new breed of smartphone app developers — to bring their services to Windows 10 and its Windows Store.
It's basically trying to take its existing lead in desktop operating systems, and extend it down to the things people usually do on their phones nowadays.
They've had some success at attracting big names like Uber, Facebook, and Hulu, but Windows 10 just doesn't have the same thriving ecosystem of, say, Google's Android. Thanks to Microsoft's lack of presence in the smartphone world, many developers would rather focus their efforts on iOS and Android.
For now, that's fine. Windows 10 still runs all of the old-school Windows software that consumers and business are used to, and you can still use your web apps. Increasingly, though, the next generation of great stuff is being written for the smartphone, or for the web, because that's where the customers are.
It's a future that Chromebooks will be uniquely well-positioned to take advantage of, with that all-important community of Android app developers, plus the mega-popular Chrome web browser.
And while Google doesn't make its own Chromebook laptops, with the exception of the super-high-end Chromebook Pixel line, the Chromebooks represent significant new territory for Google's Android business and overall reach.
Windows still has a clear lead now, but the PC market is shrinking, with little chance of a turnaround. If Chromebooks are growing amid those conditions, it's just another challenge for Microsoft to overcome.
In its ongoing push to bolster its enterprise business, Google has nabbed Tariq Shaukat, the chief commercial officer for casino kingpin Caesars Entertainment Corp.
He will be president of enterprise sales at Google, a rep confirmed.
Earlier this month, Amit Singh, the head of Google's enterprise app business, jumped over to run business operations for the company's virtual reality effort. Shaukat's role will be an expanded one, overseeing sales for enterprise apps, cloud services and devices, according to a source familiar with the company.
Shaukat spent four years at Caesars. Before that, he was a partner at McKinsey for seven years.
The dream: Keep your phone in airplane mode, forever.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, he famously teased it as "three devices": An iPod, a phone and an "internet communications device" — maybe the clunkiest three words ever uttered at an Apple keynote.
On this week's episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode question whether your smartphone can be just an internet communications device. Can you stop paying for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile and only use Wi-Fi to do all your talking and texting?
That raises the question, of course: What if you're somewhere without Wi-Fi? Kara and Lauren are joined this week by Steven van Wel, the CEO of Karma, which makes a portable hotspot called KarmaGo. Technically, the device is turning Sprint's cellular data signal into a Wi-Fi network, but van Wel said the whole point is not having to think about where your data is coming from or how much you're using.
And he should know -- his iPhone spent four years without ever leaving airplane mode.
Thank you to Steve, Michael, Jon, Kitty, Caleb, Adrian, Geno, Ish, August, Neville, Rafael and everyone else who sent in comments and questions about Wi-Fi calling. You can tweet your questions about any tech topic to @LaurenGoode with the hashtag #TooEmbarrassed. And be sure to follow Lauren, @KaraSwisher and @Recode to get alerted when we're looking for questions about a specific topic.
If you like this show, you should also check out our other podcasts:
Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
And finally, Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events such as the Code Conference, Recode Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara and Lauren. Tune in next Friday for another episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask!
The upstart app backed by several Wall Street banks is going mobile.
Symphony, the secure cloud-based messaging company backed by several financial institutions and also by Google, will next week release its first mobile app for the iPhone, sources familiar with the matter tell Recode.
So far, Symphony's messaging and chat application has been available only via web browsers. The iPhone-only (for now) app is expected to drop either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, sources say. A beta of its first Android app is coming this summer.
In so doing, it will start to fill in some of the blanks against rivals like Slack, whose popular messaging and collaboration app has mobile versions for iOS and Android. Another long-term rival is Bloomberg's financial data terminal, which has also been adapted to run on smart phones.
Symphony has positioned itself as a highly secure application, in which messages are encrypted from beginning to end, but has also touted its flexibility with systems that banks use to preserve messages, as they're often required to do under regulatory rules.
It's built atop a product first developed by a startup called Perzo, launched by the French software engineer David Gurlé and a small team of developers. Goldman Sachs acquired Perzo in 2014 and then invited other banks and financial institutions to join it in a consortium. The company has raised a combined $166 million so far.
A few days ago, Google announced that Chromebooks will soon be able to run Android apps from the Google Play app store, finally making them fully capable computers and putting them in a position to put a real dent in Apple and Microsoft's dominance in PCs.
The announcement was perfectly timed too. Chromebooks outsold Macs in the US for the first time last quarter, according to research firm IDC, which tracks PC sales.
It's a sign that a growing number of PC users are realizing they don't need to spend a thousand bucks or more on a laptop, especially when they're buying a new smartphone every other year.
Right now, Chromebooks are essentially just the Chrome web browser running on a laptop. While they have some offline capabilities, you're still mostly limited to what's possible on the web, which is fine for a lot of tasks, but not ideal when you want to work offline or use certain programs.
Android apps mean a lot for Chromebooks. It's not just about playing Candy Crush; it opens up a whole new suite of apps to Chromebook users for the first time, like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and better, more capable versions of web apps like Slack or Spotify. Plus, all those apps can run in individual windows like on a traditional PC. Most people probably won't even realize they're using an app originally designed for a phone.
When Chromebooks first launched, it was easy to scoff at them. (I did.) Who wants a shell of a computer that's just running a web browser? But we quickly learned that cheap computers that are just capable enough can draw in a lot of buyers. The success of Chromebooks, especially in areas like education, was a shock to everyone.
Now they're poised to eat into the PC market even more. Soon, there won't be anything you can't do on a Chromebook that you can do on a Mac or Windows PC. And, in a lot of cases, you'll be able to do it for hundreds less. You can get a decent Chromebook for just $200.
That should worry Apple and Microsoft. Ever since the modern smartphone era, there have been fewer reasons to upgrade to a new PC as often as you used to. And when many people are ready, they go as cheap as possible.
Access to Android apps will quell any doubts about what a Chromebook can do, and I bet we're about to go through a fundamental shift in the way a lot of people use PCs because of it.
Design experts and employers speculate on the purpose and future of the open office and what millennials really want.
At college, you probably had open working environments all over campus—in the library, in dorm common areas, in social centers. Ironically, your first job may look strikingly similar to some of those spaces—and it's intentional. In recent research by global manufacturer KI Furniture, 75% of employers recognized that collegiate design can have an influence on workplace design. And indeed it has—almost 70% of U.S. workplaces, which are increasingly filled with college graduates, have an open layout.
Remember Nexus Q, Google's orb-shaped media player?
Probably not, since the baffling device never shipped after its unveiling at the company's 2012 developers' conference.
And Q isn't Google's only I/O flop over the years.
Now that this year's show has wound down, the folks at Venngage took stock of some of Google's highest highs and lowest lows.
It isn't an exhaustive list. For example, there's no mention of Project Ara, the mix-and-match phone concept first revealed in 2013, or some of the other wacky side projects Google has announced. But it's still a fun little reminder that not all of the hype ends up paying off, while some products really do make history.
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For now, that's fine. Windows 10 still runs all of the old-school Windows software that consumers and business are used to, and you can still use your web apps. Increasingly, though, the next generation of great stuff is being written for the smartphone, or for the web, because that's where the customers are. 
History of Google I/O | Infographic Maker
