Category: Current and Future Trends

Article – From the horse’s mouth

AVM earns more industry recognition for their Fritz!Box devices

AVM

AVM is delighted to win two Connect awards (Press Release)

My Comments

AVM has just earned two Connect awards for their German-designed home-network technology.

The first of these was for the Fritz!Box routers and mesh setup. No wonder they would earn industry recognition for their home-network products especially since they were the first company to break the mould regarding home-network routers by supplying self-updating firmware.

The issue of self-updating firmware became very important due to the fact that most of us aren’t updating our home-network router’s firmware regularly and it was a security hole. This is thanks to the “out-of-the-box” software coming with bugs and weaknesses that can be exploited by hackers against the typical home network.

Another step in the right direction was to implement distributed-wireless networking through a free software update rather than requiring customers to replace their AVM home-network devices. This was about providing a function update to the Fritz!Box modem router’s FritzOS firmware to open up this functionality. There was even the ability to roll out the functionality to Fritz!WLAN Repeaters and Fritz!Powerline access points to bring on the simplified distributed-wireless functionality to them all. It also applied to some recent-model Fritz!Box modem routers to cater for the reality that an older router can be “pushed down” to be an access point while the new router works as the edge of your home network.

But they also earned awards for their IP-based telephony equipment which was considered important as European telcos are moving towards IP-based telephony and away from the traditional telephone system. One of the products was a CAT-iQ DECT cordless handset that worked with their Fritz!Box modem routers that had DECT hase-station functionality for VoIP telephony. This had abilities similar to what you would expect of a mobile phone of the “feature phone” class.

What is being shown here is that the European companies are coming through on functionality innovation when it comes to the home-network “edge” router or infrastructure devices for your home network.

Articles – From the horse’s mouth

You may find that the Internet radio service is not working if you are using the vTuner Internet-radio directory used by most Internet radios

Frontier Silicon

Support Notice regarding changeover (English language / Deutsche Sprache / Langue Française)

Airable by Tune In Gmbh

Product Page regarding Internet radio directory service

Message From The Team (Press Release)

My Comments

Recently, it has been found that vTuner, the Internet-radio directory used by many Internet radios and audio equipment with that functionality including the ones previously reviewed on this Website, has become unreliable as a service. This has caused some of the set manufacturers to receive user complaints about their products through their product-support contact paths.

These manufacturers and Internet-radio platform providers like Frontier Silicon have found that they can’t assure their end users can benefit from proper service continuity. So they are changing their Internet-radio and audio-on-demand service provider to Airable by Tune In. This German company is a different company to the TuneIn Radio app and Website we commonly use to bring Internet radio to our computers, smartphones and tablets.

Check the update options in your Internet radio’s menus for any directory service updates

In a lot of cases, the manufacturer will supply a firmware update which may be delivered via the Internet connection or as a downloadable software package to be transferred to the Internet-radio device via a USB memory stick. Devices based on the Frontier-Silicon platform which includes Roberts, Bush, Kogan, Ruark, Revo or Sangean equipment will simply take on a small configuration update which may require the set to be turned off then on for it to be implemented.

There will be some older audio-equipment models, mainly “big sets” (hi-fi equipment, stereo systems and the like) offered by some of the big names, that may not be able to be updated to newer Internet-radio services. In most cases, these units will lose Internet-radio functionality and this is due to a traditionalist approach towards managing “end-of-life” models by these brands.

The same issue will also apply with equipment like the Ruark R7 Radiogram

If your device is based around a mobile-platform app, something that would be common with Wi-Fi-based multiroom speakers, you may have to update your app from the mobile platform’s app store. Typically this is facilitated using the “Update” option within the app-store menu. The same issue also applies to smart TVs, set-top boxes, games consoles, mobile-platform apps and the like whereupon you would have to visit the platform’s app store or download location to obtain an app update or a substitute Internet-radio app.

Other than that, check with your set’s manufacturer’s support Website for any software updates if you have found that you aren’t benefiting from Internet-radio service continuity.

Once the firmware update or configuration update has completed, you will find that the menu tree for your equipment’s Internet-radio or online services mode has been revised. You will also find that you will have to store your favourite stations using your set’s preset buttons rather than an online resource. This means you will have to rely on your set’s preset-station functionality for this purpose.

Since 5 August, Frontier Silicon have built up a new Web portal for you to manage your favourite stations in addition to using your set’s preset-station buttons. This will work with devices based on their platform like Bush, Roberts, Ruark or Kogan sets that are updated to use Airable.

Speaking of which, you may have to reallocate your favourite Internet-radio stations to your set’s preset buttons. This is because these buttons keep a reference to the station’s entry to the Internet-radio-directory-service’s directory rather than the full URL for that online stream. For example, a reference to Heart London’s Internet stream as a preset button on your set may only point to the reference in the vTuner Internet-radio directory which has all the stream addresses for that “turn up the feel good” London pop-music radio station. But this station would be under a different reference with Airable or another directory.

Some of these sets may not be able to benefit from Internet radio thanks to the manufacturer not supplying further software updates

Airable were even stating in their latest press release that they were on the receiving end of various support tickets as each brand was switching over to them to provide Internet-radio service continuity. They were even finding that they had to claw through the support requests while the switchovers were taking place.

If you discover a new online media resource, you may have to share the resource’s stream URL for audio streams  or RSS Webfeed URL for podcasts to Airable’s “suggest content” page. This will be something that podcasters and new Internet-radio broadcasters will have to do as they come on board with online content.

The same issue about Internet radio service continuity can apply to smart TVs, set-top boxes and game consoles that implement an Internet radio app

Companies who are using the Airable internet-radio-directory service on their products have the ability to “link” with audio-content services that implement the Airable.API interface. Here, it avoids the need to add to their device’s firmware many software “hooks” to allow the online service to be available from that device’s control surface. It also avoids the need to refresh device firmware if the content directory has to be amended.

What may also have to happen is for the Airable API to implement RadioDNS as part of their directory and software. It is becoming important where the Internet radio concept is very much about “hybrid radio” operation with “single-dial” tuning and rich displays along with the classic view of Internet radio as the “new shortwave”.

The changeover will take time to complete and will yield useability problems but it will, in most cases, be about continuing to listen to Internet radio. At the same time, Tune In will have to scale up their servers to answer increased demand and keep investing in their service all the time to avoid becoming oversubscribed or running on old data.

Update: 8 August 2019 – Frontier Silicon rebuilding their favourite-stations Web portal that works with Airable for their Internet-radio platforms.

Articles

Lenovo’s new ThinkBook line offers ThinkPad-level features at a lower price point | The Verge

Lenovo’s new ThinkBook laptop line is built for slimness and security | Engadget

Lenovo launches less-expensive ThinkBook laptops | CNet

From the horse’s mouth

Lenovo

Thinkbook Series (product page)

Meet the New ThinkBook: Built for Business, Designed for Generation Next (Press Release)

Product Tour Video – Click or tap to play

My Comments

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s small-business notebook computer

HP and Dell have, for a long time, created a separate range of regular computers that stand between the consumer-class and enterprise-class product lineups. These product lineups known as ProBook in the case of HP or Vostro in the case of Dell were effectively targeted at small-to-medium business / community-organisation users or self-employed / freelance professionals.

Lenovo, Acer and some other computer manufacturers didn’t target this kind of user class effectively with a product lineup that answered their particular needs without adding to much extra functionality. Typically, the computers offered by these manufacturers wore the lower-tier models of the enterprise product range or the premium consumer products in their product lineup.

Lenovo ThinkBook 14s small-business notebook computer

But Lenovo have answered the small-to-medium-size organisation’s or freelancer’s needs by launching the ThinkBook product lineup targeted at these user classes. Here, they removed all the extra management features associated with enterprise-class computers, added the kind of multimedia features associated with consumer-grade products and presented them with a stylish look.

This satisfies the reality that this user class doesn’t run or contract an IT management and support team. Rather they have their solutions provider or an independent computer store provide the necessary after-sales support.

Similarly, this user class tends to work these computers as a “work-home” computer system which has to perform well in an all-round multimedia context as well as looking stylish for the home. It includes the fact that a significant amount of the small/medium business or freelance / self-employed user class places emphasis on doing at least some of their work from home.

Lenovo answered this situation by integrating an essential subset of security features in the form of a discrete TPM security chip along with a fingerprint reader that is integrated in the computer’s power switch. These work together to provide authentication for local or Web resources according the the “open-frame” FIDO2 standards. The camera also supports the end-user’s privacy through the use of a mechanical shutter over the lens that the user can slide back when they want to use the camera with Lenovo marketing it as the ThinkShutter.

There is also the business-class durability associated with the ThinkPad business product range built in to the new ThinkBook product range. This means that the small-organisation or freelancer user isn’t treated as a second-class citizen in this respect.

But the ThinkBook 13s and 14s which are clamshell laptops implement multimedia features like Dolby Audio and Harman sound tuning for the sound output and Dolby Vision colour management for the Full HD display. Both these laptops were also designed to have the stylish looks and are finished in a sliver housing rather than a black or charcoal-grey housing associated with business-grade computer equipment.

The ThinkBook 13s (13” screen) has the integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics whereas the ThinkBook 14s (14” screen) has AMD Radeon discrete graphics with AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics operation. Both of them support Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) dual-stream for wireless operation along with a USB-C port and one of the two standard USB 3 ports supporting “Plug and Charge” operation when the computer is closed up.

The keyboard layout will be similar to most laptops on the market and it will use a normal touchpad and not have the IBM/Lenovo thumbstick associated with the ThinkPad. There are dedicated function keys for managing voice / video calls with Skype or other softphone / videophone software that responds to standard call-control function keys.

The ThinkBook laptop range are expected to appear at least in the North-American market by the end of May. But I would see this as a chance for Lenovo to build out a regular-computer product range dedicated to the small organisations and self-employed or freelancing professionals of this world.

It will also be a chance for more of the computer vendors to build up and identify out their “prosumer” products that fill the gap between consumer-focused and business-focused or professional-focused markets. This is through practices like designing products with the essential security, durability and reliability features but presented in a stylish form and capable of satisfying multimedia work and play activity.

Articles

Spotify’s ad-supported free music service faces competition from Amazon and Google

Free ad-supported service tier

Amazon Music’s free ad-supported tier goes live, but only for Alexa users | The Verge

Amazon and Google Are Making Music Free — And That Could Be a Big Headache for Spotify | Rolling Stone

Hi-Fi-grade premium service tier from Amazon

Amazon may be working on a high-fidelity music streaming service | Engadget

Amazon Planning To Hi-Fi Music Streaming Service: Report | Android Headlines

Amazon Music rolls out a lossless streaming tier that Spotify and Apple can’t match | The Verge

From the horse’s mouth

Amazon

Amazon Music HD (Product Page – Sign up here)

My Comments

The Silicon Valley establishment are realising that other companies are offering streaming-music services that offer service options that they don’t provide in their own services.

Ad-supported free-to-end-user service tier

The Amazon Echo will benefit from Amazon’s free music service

One of these is a free-to-end-user service option which is supported by audio advertising that plays in a similar manner to commercial free-to-air music radio.

Spotify had, for a long time, established its streaming-music service on a “freemium” model with an ad-supported basic service tier free to the end-user. This is alongside their Premium service tier which can be fully enjoyed on your mobile device or Spotify Connect endpoint audio devices and without advertising.

The advertising models included display advertising on the user interface along with radio-commercial-type audio ads at regular intervals. They also offer to marketers advertising ideas like sponsored playlists or sponsored listening sessions.

Now Amazon and Google are offering a free-music ad-supported streaming tier for their “online jukeboxes” but this will be limited to their smart-speaker platforms rather than a Web-based or mobile-based experience. There will also be a limited music offering available through this music tier.

Premium hi-fi-grade service tier

Amazon to undercut Tidal and Deezer when delivering a streaming music service fit to play through hi-fi equipment

The other is a premium streaming service that yields at least CD-grade audio fit to be played through that hi-fi system rather than an experience similar to FM radio.

TiDAL and Deezer based their music-streaming service on listeners who value high-quality sound for a long time. You may have heard music streamed from one or both of these services if you have recently attended a hi-fi show like any of the Chester Group hi-fi shows where I have heard TiDAL in action, or visited a boutique hi-fi or home-AV store.

Amazon aren’t taking this lightly and are offering the HD and Ultra HD service tiers which are the hi-fi-grade premium service tiers for their Amazon Music Unlimited streaming-music service. This is priced at US$15 per month with a view to undercut TiDAL and Deezer and is also targeted towards people who use Alexa-platform audio devices with their hi-fi system or use an Alexa-based network multiroom setup.

The Amazon service offers the high-quality service as two tiers – the HD one that is equivalent to CD quality and the Ultra HD one that is equivalent to “master quality”. These use the FLAC codec to trasfer the music to your equipment and you may find that the HD tier is similar to what you get if you are “ripping” a CD to FLAC files with, perhaps, Windows Media Player in Windows 10.  They are working with the record labels to license their music libraries to this service in order to have more high-grade content.

What is this to lead to

I see this opening up the floodgates for a highly-volatile streaming-music service market with companies wanting to cut in with entry-level free tiers driven by advertising or premium hi-fi-grade subscription tiers for those who value high-quality sound. Here, I would see at most of these companies running a three-tier music service for consumers – an ad-supported limited-content free service, a standard package with the whole library delivered ad-free and a premium package that has access to the whole library with CD-grade or master-grade audio.

There will be some factors that will allow each streaming-music service to differentiate themselves in a crowded market. They will become more important as a way to attract new subscribers or retain their existing subscriber base. It will also become important in encouraging people who have subscriptions with all of the services to focus their attention to a particular service.

One of these would be the quantity and quality of music playlists, especially curated playlists. Another would be the richness of information available to the user about the performers, composers, genres and other factors regarding the music library.

There will also be whether the music library contains underrepresented content and how much of this content is available to the users. This includes whether they offer a classical-music service with the expectations of such a service like composer-based searching.

Another issue that will show up is the provision of client-side support in standalone audio equipment so you aren’t running extra software on a computer or mobile device to get the music from that service to the speakers. This will also include having software for these services integrated in your car’s dashboard.

There will be the issue of what kind of partnerships the streaming-music service provider can have with the business community. It ranges from  “business music” service tiers with music properly licensed for public-performance on business premises to advertising and sponsorship arrangements like what Spotify has achieved.

As far as the creative team behind the music is concerned, a differentiation factor that will come about is how each streaming-music service renumerates these teams. It is whether they are the composers, arrangers, lyricists or music publishers behind the songs or the performers and record labels behind the recordings.

There will also be the issue of encouraging other vendors to tie-in streaming-music subscription as part of a package deal. This could be through an ISP or telco providing this service as part of an Internet or mobile-telephony service plan. Or buying a piece of equipment like an Internet radio could have you benefit from reduced subscription costs for a particular streaming-music service.

What I see of the online music-streaming market is something that will be very volatile and competitive.

UPDATE

19 September 2019 – Amazon formally launches the HD and Ultra HD hi-fi-quality service tiers for their Music Unlimited streaming service.

Article

Are you sure you are casting your vote or able to cast your vote without undue influence?

Australian Electoral Commission boots online blitz to counter fake news | ITNews

Previous coverage

Being cautious about fake news and misinformation in Australia

From the horse’s mouth

Australian Electoral Commission

Awareness Page

Press Release

My Comments

I regularly cover the issue of fake news and misinformation especially when this happens around election cycles. This is because it can be used as a way to effectively distort what makes up a democratically-elected government.

When the Victorian state government went to the polls last year, I ran an article about the issue of fake news and how we can defend ourselves against it during election time. This was because of Australia hosting a run of elections that are ripe for a concerted fake-news campaign – state elections for the two most-populous states in the country and a federal election.

It is being seen as of importance due to fact that the IT systems maintained by the Australian Parliament House and the main Australian political parties fell victim to a cyber attack close to February 2019 with this hack being attributed to a nation-state. This can lead to the discovered information being weaponised against the candidates or their political parties similar to the email attack against the Democrat party in the USA during early 2016 which skewed the US election towards Donald Trump and America towards a highly-divided nation.

The issue of fake news, misinformation and propaganda has been on our lips over the last few years due to us switching away from traditional news-media sources to social media and online search and news-aggregation sites. Similarly, the size of well-respected newsrooms is becoming smaller due to reduced circulation and ratings for newspapers and TV/radio stations driven by our use of online resources. This leads to poorer-quality news reporting that is a similar standard to entertainment-focused media like music radio.

A simplified low-cost no-questions-asked path has been facilitated by personal computing and the Internet to create and present material, some of which can be questionable. It is now augmented by the ability to create deepfake image and audio-visual content that uses still images, audio or video clips to represent a very convincing falsehood thanks to artificial-intelligence. Then this content can be easily promoted through popular social-media platforms or paid positioning in search engines.

Such content takes advantage of the border-free nature of the Internet to allow for an actor in one jurisdiction to target others in another jurisdiction without oversight of the various election-oversight or other authorities in either jurisdiction.

I mentioned what Silicon Valley’s online platforms are doing in relation to this problem such as restricting access to online advertising networks; interlinking with fact-check organisations to identify fake news; maintaining a strong feedback loop with end-users; and operating robust user-account-management and system-security policies, procedures and protocols. Extant newsrooms are even offering fact-check services to end-users, online services and election-oversight authorities to build up a defence against misinformation.

But the Australian Electoral Commission is taking action through a public-education campaign regarding fake news and misinformation during the Federal election. They outlined that their legal remit doesn’t cover the truthfulness of news content but it outlines whether the information comes from a reliable or recognised source, how current it is and whether it could be a scam. Of course there is the issue of cross-border jurisdictional issues especially where material comes in from overseas sources.

They outlined that their remit covers the “authorisation” or provenance of the electoral communications that appear through advertising platforms. As well, they underscore the role of other Australian government agencies like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who oversee advertising issues and the Australian Communications And Media Authority who oversee broadcast media. They also have provided links to the feedback and terms-and-conditions pages of the main online services in relationship to this issue.

These Federal agencies are also working on the issue of electoral integrity in the context of advertising and other communication to the voters by candidates, political parties or other entities; along with the “elephant in the room” that is foreign interference; and security of these polls including cyber-security.

But what I have outlined in the previous coverage is to look for information that qualifies the kind of story being published especially if you use a search engine or aggregated news view; to trust your “gut reaction” to the information being shared especially if it is out-of-touch with reality or is sensationalist or lurid; checking the facts against established media that you trust or other trusted resources; or even checking for facts “from the horse’s mouth” such as official press releases.

Inspecting the URL in your Web browser’s address bar before the first “/” to see if there is more that what is expected for a news source’s Web site can also pay dividends. But this can be a difficult task if you are using your smartphone or a similarly-difficult user interface.

I also even encourage making more use of established trusted news sources including their online presence as a primary news source during these critical times. Even the simple act of picking up and reading that newspaper or turning on the radio or telly can be a step towards authoritative news sources.

As well, I also encourage the use of the reporting functionality or feedback loop offered by social media platforms, search engines or other online services to draw attention to contravening content This was an action I took as a publisher regarding an ad that appeared on this site which had the kind of sensationalist headline that is associated with fake news.

The issue of online misinformation especially during general elections is still a valid concern. This is more so where the online space is not subject to the kinds of regulation associated with traditional media in one’s home country and it becomes easy for foreign operators to launch campaigns to target other countries. What needs to happen is a strong information-sharing protocol in order to place public and private stakeholders on alert about potential election manipulation.

Article

How to Make John Legend Your Google Assistant Voice | Tom’s Guide

Google Assistant launches first celebrity cameo with John Legend | CNet

How to make John Legend sing to you as your new Google Assistant voice | CNet

From the horse’s mouth

Google

Hey Google, talk like a Legend {Blog Post)

Video – Click or tap to play

My Comments

Google is trying out a product-differentiating idea of using celebrity voices as an optional voice that answers you when you use their Google Assistant.

This practice of using celebrity voices as part of consumer electronics and communications devices dates back to the era of telephone answering machines. Here, people could buy “phone funnies” or “ape tapes” which featured one-liners or funny messages typically recorded by famous voices such as some of radio’s and TV’s household names. It was replaced through the 90s with downloadable quotes that you can use for your computer’s audio prompts or, eventually, for your mobile phone’s ringtone.

Now Google has worked on the idea of creating what I would call a “voice font” which uses a particular voice to annunciate text provided in a text-to-speech context. This is equivalent to the use of a typeface to determine how printed text looks. It also encompasses the use of pre-recorded responses that are used for certain questions, typically underscoring the particular voice’s character.

The technology Google is using is called WaveNet which implements the neural-network and machine-learning concept to synthesise the various voices in a highly-accurate way. But to acquire the framework that describes a particular voice, the actor would have to record predefined scripts which bring out the nuances in their voices. It is part of an effort to provide a natural-sounding voice-driven user experience for applications where the speech output is varied programmatically such as voice-driven assistants or interactive voice response.

At the moment, this approach can only happen with actors who are alive and can come in to a studio. But I would see WaveNet and similar technologies eventually set up to work from extant recordings where the actor isn’t working to a special script used for capturing their voice’s attributes, including where the talent’s voice competes with other sounds like background music or sound effects . By working from these recordings, it could be about using the voices of evergreen talent that had passed on or using the voices that the talent used while performing in particular roles that underscored their fame. A good example of this application are the actors who performed in those classic British TV sitcoms of the 1970s or using Peter Sellers’, Spike Milligan’s, Harry Secombe’s and Michael Bentine’s voices as they sounded in the Goon Show radio comedy.

Google is presenting this in the form of a special-issue “voice font” representing John Legend, an actor and singer-songwriter who sung alongside the likes of Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson. Here, it is being used as a voice that one can implement on their Google Home, Android phone or other Google-Assistant device, responding to particular questions you ask of that assistant.

Amazon and others won’t take this lying down especially where the voice-driven assistant market is very competitive. As well, there will be the market pressure for third parties to implement this kind of technology in their voice-driven applications such as navigation systems in order to improve and customise the user experience.

Articles

WhatsApp debuts fact-checking service to counter fake news in India | Engadget

India: WhatsApp launches fact-check service to fight fake news | Al Jazeera

From the horse’s mouth

WhatsApp

Tips to help prevent the spread of rumors and fake news {User Advice)

Video – Click or tap to play

My Comments

As old as the World-Wide-Web has been, email has been used as a way to share online news amongst people in your social circle.

Typically this has shown up in the form of jokes, articles and the like appearing in your email inbox from friends, colleagues or relatives, sometimes with these articles forwarded on from someone else. It also has been simplified through the ability to add multiple contacts from your contact list to the “To”, “Cc” or “Bcc” fields in the email form or create contact lists or “virtual contacts” from multiple contacts.

The various instant-messaging platforms have also become a vector to share links to articles hosted somewhere on the Internet in the same manner as email, as has the carrier-based SMS and MMS texting platforms when used with a smartphone.

But the concern raised about the distribution of misinformation and fake news has been focused on the popular social media and image / video sharing platforms. This is while fake news and misinformation creep in to your Inbox or instant-messaging client thanks to one or more of your friends who like passing on this kind of information.

WhatsApp, a secure instant-messaging platform owned by Facebook, is starting to tackle this issue head-on with its Indian userbase as that country enters its election cycle for the main general elections. They are picking up on the issue of fake news and misinformation thanks to the Facebook Group being brought in to the public limelight due to this issue. As well, Facebook have been recently clamping down on inauthentic behaviour that was targeting India and Pakistan.

WhatsApp now highlighting fake news problem in India, especially as this platform is seen as a popular instant-messenger within that country. They are working with a local fact-checking startup called Proto to create the Checkpoint Tipline to allow users to have links that are sent to them verified. It is driven on the base of a “virtual contact” that the WhatsApp users forward questionable links or imagery to.

But due to the nature of its end-to-end encryption and the fact that service is purely a messaging service, there isn’t the ability to verify or highlight questionable content. But they also have placed limits on the number of users one can broadcast a message to in order to tame the spread of rumours.

It is also being used as a tool to identify the level of fake news and misinformation taking place on the messenger platform and to see how much of a vector these platforms are.

Personally, I would like to see the various fact-checking agencies have an email mailbox where you can forward emails with questionable links and imagery to so they can verify that rumour mail doing the rounds. It could operate in a similar vein to how the banks, tax offices and the like have set up mailboxes for people to forward phishing email to so these organisations can be aware of the phishing problem they are facing.

The only problem with this kind of service is that people who are astute and savvy are more likely to use it. This may not affect those of us who just end up passing on whatever comes our way.