Chinese phone makers ZTE and Huawei remain under scrutiny by the US government, which has banned them from retail stores on military bases. The order comes from the Pentagon and applies to US military bases around the world, a decision made over alleged security issues the devices may present. Both companies have previously, and repeatedly, dismissed the government’s concerns. The … Continue reading
If you take a peek at Spotify’s newest news release, you’d be forgiven for thinking everything is rosy. There they suggested they’d reached 75M Premium Subscribers and 170M Monthly Active Users. That’s no small feat. It isn’t quite enough, yet, to stay total operating loss for the quarter. Spotify’s earnings call this week was the first since it began its … Continue reading
Bang & Olufsen is giving its iconic Earset headphones and wireless update, with the new B&O Play Earset Bluetooth promising to cut the cord to your smartphone. Based on the original design for the wired version, created in the 90s by B&O’s Anders Hermansen, the new model eschews a 3.5mm plug for Bluetooth streaming instead. The Danish company also called … Continue reading
Michael Sayman, originally invited to Facebook as a 17-year-old by Mark Zuckerberg, created a video-centric social app for teens, Lifestage, when he was 19. Now the young superstar is behind a secret Google social-gaming startup called Arcade, accord…
Spotify made its New York Stock Exchange debut last month, and today the streaming service announced its first earning report as a public company. As part of its pre-filing paperwork, we already knew the company had amassed 170 million monthly users,…
IK Multimedia is known for its wide variety of music gear, including MIDI controllers, mixers and instrument interfaces. Now the company has just launched its first analog synth, a compact little machine named Uno.
The company’s own Erik Norlander (…
Verizon launched an investigation soon after HuffPost reached out for comment.
It has long been rumored that Facebook is developing its very own smart speaker and while the company was reportedly going to release it in the first half of this year, the data privacy scandal may have caused it to delay the product’s release. According to a new report, Facebook might go for an international launch of its smart speaker first before launching it in the United States to avoid public scrutiny of any further data privacy issues.
Citing two people who have had discussions with Facebook about the smart speaker, CNBC reports that Facebook is thinking about selling its smart speakers internationally before they’re launched in the United States. This may help the product avoid additional scrutiny on user privacy issues by politicians and users.
One of the two smart speakers that Facebook has in the pipeline will reportedly have a camera and a touchscreen. It will connect directly to Facebook Messenger thus enabling users to easily stay in touch with friends and family. A smart voice assistant will also be onboard that’s going to be powered by Facebook’s M artificial intelligence program.
The M program previously gave us the personal assistant chatbot on Messenger but Facebook shut down that iteration of this technology in January this year. The report mentions that the company hasn’t completely shut down the M program and will develop it into a voice assistant instead.
An international launch won’t just avoid further scrutiny in the United States, it will also help the company’s new devices establish a bigger presence in markets overseas where competitors from the likes of Google and Amazon are not as popular. Facebook hasn’t confirmed or denied this report as yet.
Facebook’s Smart Speaker May Be Launched Internationally First , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
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