Daily Archives: March 5, 2020

Amazon Web Services plans to double its sales staffing numbers this year in the face of mounting competition and slowing growth.

The hiring spree, reportedly announced in a sales meeting in Chicago in January, will bring in security, AI, and data analytics specialists to help AWS's sales staff answer technical questions from customers and sell more services.

The exact size of AWS's sales team is a closely guarded secret, even to its own staff. The cloud biz's chief suit, Andy Jassy, has said the number was in the "thousands" in a 2016 interview, and it has likely grown considerably since then.

AWS dominates cloud computing, munching 32.3 per cent of the market, according to Canalys. That's well ahead of Microsoft's 16.9 per cent and Google's 5.8 per cent.

But the Jeff-Bezos-run titan's enormous growth has begun to slow recently as other providers catch up. Of the big four cloud providers, Google grew the most last year, swelling 87.8 per cent, Microsoft came in second, with 64 per cent growth. Alibaba was close behind with 63.8 per cent. But AWS's growth, at 36 per cent, was half that of its nearest rival.

AWS still posted the biggest revenue increase in absolute terms with $9.2bn compared with Microsoft's $7.1bn but many saw the pair's recent financial results as an early sign that rival services were beginning to catch up with Bezos' behemoth.

Google Cloud's chief exec, Thomas Kurian, recently committed to tripling the size of his sales team as part of a wider restructure. The former Oracle exec has pushed for more services to woo enterprise customers, and is looking to expand Google's reseller network.

Last week, the company inked a deal with LA-based service provider SADA to resell $500m in Google Cloud services over the next three years. Google plans to invest $10bn into data centres and offices across the US this year.

Arch-rival Microsoft has shifted its focus to aggressively target Amazon's cloud clients. The strategy is working, according to some analysts. Last year, Redmond surprised everyone by beating AWS to win the US Department of Defense's $10bn decade-long JEDI IT supply deal, which seeks to switch the the US's military data over to the cloud. AWS appealed the decision and was granted a pause on the contract until the courts came to a decision on whether or not it was awarded fairly.

The new hires make up the first sales shakeup at AWS in several years. Up to now, the cloud giant has focused on selling basic building block services, such as its cloud servers and storage. But the company is now shifting focus to finished products, like Pinpoint, which helps manage marketing campaigns, and Fraud Detector, a service the company is currently testing that detects online fraud. Other AWS services include Outposts and Local Zones.

Amazon recently reported revenues of $280.5bn up 20 per cent on the previous year. About a tenth of this came from AWS, which generated $35.03bn.

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AWS to double sales droids as Google, Microsoft's growing clouds threaten to gobble larger slices of Bezos' pie - The Register

Google and Microsoft have announced that they will offer free access to their teleconferencing tools to help businesses and schools continue operating in spite of the global coronavirus outbreak.

Google will provide free access to the advanced Hangouts meeting service to all G-Suite and G-Suite for Educations customers across the globe, and Microsoft will offer a six-month free trial of Microsoft Teams.

Both these services will allow important organisations to operate remotely and let employees work from home, avoiding interpersonal meetings as well as classroom gatherings.

Google's Advanced Hangout Meet, which can host up to 250 participants and stream live to up to 100,000 users in a domain will be available for free till July 1. This service is otherwise priced between $13 to $25 per user per month.

The company announced, As more employees, educators, and students work remotely in response to the spread of COVID-19, we want to do our part to help them stay connected and productive and as more businesses adjust their work-from-home policies and adopt reduced travel plans in response to COVID-19, were helping to ensure that all globally distributed teams can still reliably meet face to face, even if employees are not in the same location.

The premium tier of Microsoft Teams, which was initially available in China with certain limitations, will be now available to users globally. Starting March 10, Microsoft also plans to remove member restrictions and will let users schedule video calls and conferences.

At Microsoft, the health and safety of employees, customers, partners and communities is our top priority. By making Teams available to all for free for six months, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier, Microsofts EVP JP Courtois tweeted.

The move comes after a number of major technology conferences, including both Microsoft and Googles developer events, as well as Mobile World Congress, have been called off due to the coronavirus threat.

Similarly, companies like Twitter, Facebook, Stripe, Slack, and Square have asked their employees to work remotely and also avoid non-essential travel.

Via: The Verge

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Google and Microsoft offer free teleconferencing tools to combat coronavirus - TechRadar

Huawei

As Huawei counts down the days to the launch of its latest smartphone, the P40 Pro, its loss of Google continues to take a huge toll. The Google/Huawei back and forth has dominated the U.S. blacklist headlines, and has resulted in the Chinese giant working up its Huawei Mobile Services replacement for Google, which includes a fully-featured app store and underlying services such as navigation.

What hasnt been on the cards yet has been search. And why would it? Any browser can quickly access search engines of choice, as long as access to those engines are not restricted. But search is obviously much more integrated than just browser home pages now. News, weather, travel, mediawe see the results of those engines stitched through our devices. The power in the hands of Google, particularly, has driven phenomenal financial success, but also responsibility for influencing the content that many of us now see first and foremost day by day.

And so the surprise news leaking out of Huawei this week is hugeHuawei Search is on its way, and will soon launch as part of the Huawei ecosystem. Not only does this represent a further business risk to Google from the ongoing technology split, east versus west, but it also raises some significant questions around who curates and filters our news. Huawei is the second largest supplier of smartphones worldwide, its global audience stretches way beyond Chinas borders.

There are clear implications for a Chinese company, subject to Chinas laws on content and censorship, filtering news for users around the world. Last month, by way of example, Chinese social media outlets, as well as Baidu, its leading search engine, were subject to state controls over publishing coronavirus information. While western platforms are also subject to censorship inside China, the question as to the pressure applied to a Chinese companys news outside China is unclear.

Reddit: r/Huawei. Posted by beingnull

The team at XDA-Developers tested Huawei Search, reporting that is is a basic search app that just lets you input a query to search the Internet for webpages, videos, news articles, or images. But, by way of example, the weather data is powered by Huafeng-AccuWeather, a joint venture thatapparently sources forecast data from the China Meteorological Administration.

There is no data available as to the source of the wider search results, we couldnt match search results from Huawei Search with results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Ask, or AOL. The software is licensed from Huaweis Irish subsidiary and appears to comply with relevant GDPR regulations around removing search data. XDA-Developers concluded that it would be premature to say that Huawei Search is an alternative to Google search or Microsoft Bing, but theres a possibility that this service could evolve into a decent competitor down the line.

This isnt a mapping app, its not a new front-end for our email or a payment processing engine. This is a potential filter that sits atop the World Wide Web, serving up content for hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Whether or not you believe the U.S. allegations that Huawei is controlled by the Chinese state, that it is subsidised and subject to Beijings national security laws, it is unarguably a company based in the most highly censored country on the planet.

Until now, this story has focused on the dedicated Huawei Search app. But behind that app sits a range of search engines and related services. And it is the prospect of those engines and their results being stitched into the Huawei operating systems front-end that is more of a potential concern than the app itself.

I have commented before on the unintended consequences of the U.S. blacklistGoogle and the U.S. losing their global influence on mobile standards, the launch of a third-way competitor to full-fat Android and iOS, the potential for Huawei to carve itself a dominant position overseeing that new alternative. This search news is a material further step in this, and from a transparency perspective has worrying implications. There is also the fact that search related data would be captured from the search history of those users.

If you want to see for yourself, Huawei Central has published a link to download Huawei Search, even though you will not find this app on AppGallery because its still under internal testing and not launched publicly.

In the meantime, Google has reportedly applied for a U.S. Commerce Department license to restore its supply lines to Huawei. This would return its software and services to the Chinese giants Android users worldwide. And if that happens there will be a different question: Which of Huaweis alternative apps and offerings will be shut down, restricted to China or carried as alternatives on its devices?

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This Is Huaweis Alarming New Surprise For Google: Heres Why You Should Be Concerned - Forbes

In emerging markets, up to 80% of the population may have to rely on informally-run public transport to get around. Literally, privately-run buses and cars. But journey-planning apps that work well for commuters in developed markets like New York or London do not work well in emerging markets, which is why you cant just flip open an app like Citymapper in Lagos, Nigeria. Furthermore, mobility is a fundamental driver of social, political, and economic growth. If you cannot get around, you cant grow as a country, so its pretty important for these emerging economies.

WhereIsMyTransport specialises in mapping these formal and informal public transport networks in emerging markets. They have mapped 34 cities in Africa and are mapping cities in India, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Its integrated mobility API includes proprietary algorithms, features and capabilities designed for complex transit networks in these emerging markets.

Its now raised a $7.5 million Series A funding round led by Liil Ventures, that also includes returning investors Global Innovation Fund and Goodwell Investments, plus new strategic investment from Google, Nedbank, and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC).

The platform now has more than 750,000 km of routes in 39 cities and the new strategic investment will drive further international expansion.

Devin de Vries, said: We make the invisible visible, by collecting all kinds of data related to public transport and turning the data into information that can be shared with the people who need it most. In emerging markets, the mobility ecosystem is complex; informal public transport doesnt behave like formal public transport. Data and technology solutions that work well in London or San Francisco wouldnt make anything like the same impact, if any at all, in the cities where we work. Our solutions are designed specifically to overcome these contextual challenges.

Mr. Masato Yamanami, Automotive Divisions CEO of Toyota Tsusho Corporation, also said that our divisions global network, that covers 146 countries, is primarily focused on new emerging countries where people rely on informal public transport. Through strategic collaboration with WhereIsMyTransport, we will develop better and more efficient mobility services that help to resolve social challenges and contribute to the overall economic development of nations, primarily emerging nations.

Finally, Alix Peterson Zwane, Chief Executive Officer of Global Innovation Fund, said: Informal and often unreliable mass transit is a significant problem that disproportionately affects poor people. We are excited to continue to work with WhereIsMyTransport to make mass transportation in emerging cities more accessible and more efficient.

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Google, Toyota Tsusho invest in WhereIsMyTransport to map transport in emerging cities - TechCrunch

Google is preventing employees from traveling to Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea because of outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, Business Insider reported. Amazon is asking employees to defer all nonessential travel, a spokesperson confirmed to The Verge, which includes domestic travel within the US.

Both companies had already halted employee travel to China, and Google temporarily closed down its offices in China at the end of January.

A Google employee in Zurich, Switzerland, has the novel coronavirus, a spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms, the spokesperson said in an email.

Amazon senior vice president Dave Clark wrote in an email that employees should not schedule meetings that call for travel until at least the end of April, The New York Times reported. The company is one of the leading buyers of corporate air travel, and it booked $220 million in flights in 2017.

Amazon is also canceling all on-site interviews for job candidates, Gizmodo reported. Interviews will be held over video chat.

There are currently over 83,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, worldwide. China has the largest number of cases, but outbreaks are escalating in countries like Japan and South Korea, which now has over 2,300 confirmed cases and 13 deaths.

The tech industry has seen significant impact from the ongoing outbreaks, including store closures across China and production delays. Organizers canceled Mobile World Congress after companies like Amazon, ZTE, and Sony pulled out, and Facebook canceled the in-person portion of its annual F8 developer conference.

Update February 28, 4:20PM ET: Updated with additional information on Amazons interview policy.

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Google and Amazon limit employees travel because of coronavirus fears - The Verge

Google is releasing a new hardware product called Coral. While it looks like a Raspberry Pi clone, Coral is a lot more ambitious. According to Google, it will make artificial intelligence more accessible to the public than ever before. Here's what you need to know.

Coral is described by Google as a complete ecosystem of products for developers hoping to create their own AI systems. It provides a range of products offering users the chance to prototype their AI codes and even produce them. It's been in beta mode for months but Google has finally released a final version to the public.

Previously, AI has been reserved for researchers and developers working in labs so this launch might finally push would-be developers and AI amateurs into eventually producing their ideas for wider audiences.

Google has provided some examples of projects the technology has been used for and which products and codes you'll need to give it a shot yourself. One example is a Smart Bird Feeder, which using Coral's AI-enabling products, identifies which birds are visiting the feeder and even deters other non-bird animals like squirrels.

Making an AI system will still require a lot of coding knowledge so before you jump in thinking you can switch a few words around and build the next Sophia the Robot, think again.

Google is marketing this product to developers already working with AI prototypes that would like to test and produce ideas they might not be able to in their work facilities. If you have some knowledge of coding, however, Google also provides some example codes to get you started.

The Coral lineup is not yet available for Australians but Google has said it intends to expand its market here in the coming months. It's also looking to provide Coral for people living in New Zealand, India, Thailand, Singapore, Oman, Ghana and the Philippines by that same deadline.

This article has been updated since its original publication.

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating our daily lives, with applications that curate your phone pics, manage your email, and translate text from any language into another. Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are all heavily researching how to integrate AI into their major services. Soon you'll likely interact with an AI (or its output) every time you pick up your phone. Should you trust it? Not always.

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What Is Google Coral And Do You Need It? - Lifehacker Australia

With the latest Google Maps update, you know, the one that brought a new app icon, Google removed the ability to use the hamburger menu. Instead, a list of settings now lives in the account icon at the top-right while also adding one more tab at the bottom. The next app to get a new layout is Google Photos.

Screenshots posted to Android Central show what the updated interface looks like. There will no longer be a hamburger menu on the Google Photos app and the Albums tab will be renamed to Library.

In addition, there will be a new tab called Search, which will remove the search bar at the top. The new Search tab will make it easier to select a category of photos like Selfies, Portraits, or Panoramas.

Like Google did with Maps, we imagine that many of the menu items in the hamburger will be relocated to the account users icon in the top-right. The change is rolling out on the server side, so you dont necessarily need to update the app before you see the updated UI.

With Android Gestures, we can expect Google will eventually phase out the hamburger menu in its design guidelines. The reason for this is swiping in from either the left or right edge of the screen triggers a Back command with gestures, and the hamburger menu was originally accessed by sliding in from the left edge.

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Google Photos app for Android will soon phase out the hamburger menu - GSMArena.com news - GSMArena.com