Tag: smart displays

Articles

Zoom video conferences will soon be able to take place on smart displays

Zoom Meetings Coming Soon to Smart Displays | Droid Life

Zoom video calls come to smart displays from Google, Amazon, and Facebook | Android Authority

Zoom expands to every major smart display as coronavirus keeps us home | CNet

From the borse’s mouth

Zoom

Zoom Expands to Smart Displays at Home (Blog Post)

My Comments

.. like the Amazon Echo Show

The COVID-19 coronavirus plague is increasing our use of Zoom as a multiparty videoconferencing platform especially for social and community purposes. This is thanks to measures in place to encourage social distancing and reduce travel to curb the spread of this virus. Zoom’s trademark for this service even ended up as a generic trademark word for a any multiparty videoconference just like one often referred to a common ballpoint pen as a biro.

But Zoom is primarily offered on most regular-computer and mobile-device platforms like Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android. This is because these devices have integrated or accessory Webcams supported by their operating system and can take on software from third-party developers.

… or Google-Assistant devices like this JBL Link View smart display

Recently Zoom tried out the idea of a dedicated videoconferencing appliance in the form of a 27” group videophone that can also be a display screen for a computer, TV set-top box or similar video peripheral. It is similar to previous efforts by smart-TV and video-peripheral vendors to provide Skype support if the device is equipped with an expensive accessory Webcam offered by the manufacturer.

But Zoom took a better step to partner with Google, Amazon and Facebook to integrate their platform in to the Amazon Echo Show smart displays, Facebook Portal smart display and smart displays running the Google Assistant (Home) platform. Here, these devices have the hardware that is needed to make or take videocalls i.e. a camera, microphone, screen and speakers. As well, the three vendors are more supportive of programming these devices to take on additional functionality.

These devices have some sort of videophone functionality built in to them through support for some other videoconference platforms: Skype and Amazon’s IP-telephony platform in the case of Amazon’s Echo Show devices; Google’s Duo and Meet in the case of Google-powered devices; and Facebook Messenger with its Rooms function as well as GoToMeeting, BlueJeans and WebEx in the case of the Facebook Portal. The addition of Zoom doesn’t displace the platform vendor’s own products or products the vendor has already licensed from other partners. As well, it recognises that different people and organisations tend to prefer working with particular videoconference platforms over others.

The Zoom software is engineered to take advantage of what the platforms offer including tying in with the platform’s native calendar function if you have linked your calendar to it, or joining a videoconference at your voice command. In the case of the Facebook device, you can tap the screen to join a meeting. All classes of Zoom account can be bound to these devices so you can use the account paid for by your work or school or a personal one you set up for free for social use.

This function will start to appear on most Facebook Portal devices in September then roll out across all the other smart-display platforms over October and November.

But why allow Zoom and similar videoconferences on a smart display or similar appliance? One reason is to have one device dedicated to the videoconference while you use another device to take notes or read supporting material for business, education or religion use cases. It may also be about the desire for an “appliance-simple” approach for making and taking videocalls, something that may be desired for older users who may find the process of creating or joining a multiparty videoconference daunting. As well, there is the encouragement to use an endpoint device that fits in with where it will be used such as the small smart displays that are typically installed in a kitchen or similar room.

What need to eventually happen is for Zoom and similar multiparty videoconferencing platforms to be part of connected-TV / set-top box platforms typically used for viewing Netflix or similar video-on-demand services on the big-screen TV. This is as long as the TV or set-top box can work with an accessory Webcam. As well, the device has to support multiple videoconferencing platforms, especially the common ones; while each platform has to offer a user interface suitable for 10-foot “lean-back” operation.

Here, such implementations, when done right, can be about the use of a big-screen TV as a group videophone for situations where the whole household participates in a videoconference like the many Zoom-based family or community video “catch-ups”.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Google Nest

How ultrasound sensing makes Nest displays more accessible {The Keyword blog post)

My Comments

Google is implementing in their Nest Hub smart-display products an automatic display-optimisation technology that is based on technology that has been used for a very long time.

Ultrasonic technology has been used in various ways by nature and humans to measure distance. In nature, bats and dolphins which don’t have good vision use this approach to “see” their way. It is used extensively in military and civillian marine applications to see what is underneath a boat or around a submarine and is also used as a common medical-imaging technique.

As well, in the late 1970s, Polaroid implemented ultrasound as part of their active autofocus system, which ended up as a feature for their value-priced and premium instant-picture cameras. Here, this was used to measure the distance between the camera and the subject in order to adjust the lens for proper focus. There were limitations associated with the technology like not being able to work when you photograph through a window due to the ultrasonic waves not passing through the glass.

But Google has implemented this technology as a way to adjust the display on their Nest Hub smart displays for distant or close operation. The front of a Google Nest Hub has an ultrasonic sensor that works in a similar way to what was used in a Polaroid auto-focus instant-picture camera.

But rather than the Polaroid setup being about using the distance measurement from the ultrasonic sensor to adjust a camera’s lens, this application adjusts the display according to the user’s distance from the Nest Hub. If you are distant from the Nest Hub, you would see reduced information but the key details appear in a larger typeface. Then if you come closer to the Nest Hub, you would see more detail but at a smaller typeface.

The Google blog article described this as being suitable for older users and those of us who have limited vision. The fact that you have the ability to see key information in a large typeface at a distance can make the Nest Hub accessible to this user group. But others can’t see deeper information unless they are very close to the device.

End-user privacy is still assured thanks to the use of a low-resolution distance-measurement technology whose results are kept within the device. As well, there is a menu option within the Google Home app’s Device Settings page to enable or disable the feature.

At the moment, it is initially being used for timer and current-time display as well as displaying travel time and traffic conditions for a planned journey that you set up with Google Maps. But Google and other software developers who develop for the Google Home ecosystem will add distance-sensitive display functionality to more applications like appointments and alerts.

Some people could see this technology not just for optimising the readout on a smart display but could even be used to ascertain whether people are actually using these devices. This could then be used for such functionality like energy-saving behaviour where the display turns off if no-one’s near it.

But what Google has to do is to license out this technology to allow others to implement it it to other fixed-display-based devices. Here, it could become of more use to many who don’t go for a Google Nest Hub.

but to add more functionality like appointments, alerts, reminders

Articles 

JBL Link View now up for preorder as the next Amazon Echo Show competitor | CNET News

JBL’s Google-powered smart display launches next month for $250 | The Verge

JBL’s Google-powered smart display is available for preorder | Engadget

JBL Link View Google Assistant smart display up for pre-order, ships September 3rd | 9 to 5 Google

From the horse’s mouth

JBL

Link View (Product page – link to preorder)

My Comments

The Amazon Echo Show is just about to face more competition from the Google Assistant (Home) front with JBL taking advance orders for their Link View smart speaker. This is although Lenovo has just started to roll out a production run of their Smart Displays which are based on the Google Assistant (Home) platform.

JBL have taken advance orders on this speaker since Wednesday 2 August 2018 (USA time) with them costing USD$250 a piece. They expect to have them fully available in the US market by September 3 2018 (USA time). The display on this unit serves the same purpose as the one on the Lenovo Smart Displays where it simply augments your conversation with Google Assistant using a visual experience.

These units look a bit like a boombox or stereo table radio and have an 8” high-definition touch screen along with two 2” (51mm) full-range speakers separately amplified and flanking the screen for stereo sound reproduction. Here, this traditional approach with the stereo speakers at each end of the device leads towards better perceived stereo separation. CNET saw this as offering more “punch” for music content compared to other “smart-display” devices that they experienced.

There is the camera to work with Google Duo but this device has also been designed to take care of user privacy needs thanks to a privacy shutter over the camera along with a microphone mute switch.

Like other Google Assistant (Home) devices, the JBL Link View can work as a wireless speaker for Chromecast Audio and Bluetooth links from mobile devices.

This is the start of something happening with the Google Assistant (Home) platform where the devices being offered by Lenovo and JBL are offering more than what Amazon are currently offering for their smart displays. It includes the stereo speakers for the JBL Link View along with larger displays for both the Lenovo and JBL products. LG and Sony are intending to launch their Google-powered smart displays soon but I don’t know when.

Personally, I would see Amazon and Google establishing a highly-competitive market for smart speakers and allied devices especially if both of them answer each other with devices of similar or better standards. As well, licensing the Alexa and Google Assistant (Home) standards to third-party consumer-electronics companies will also open up the path for innovation including incremental product-design improvements.

Lenovo Smart Displays now available in the USA (press picture courtesy of Lenovo USA)

Articles

Lenovo delivers the first Google Assistant smart display | Engadget

Google and Lenovo’s Smart Display Trounces Amazon’s in Every Way | Gizmodo

First of the Google Assistant-Powered Smart Displays Arrives This Week From Lenovo | Droid Life

From the horse’s mouth

Google

The first Smart Displays with the Google Assistant are now available in stores (Blog Post)

Lenovo

Smart Display (Product Page, Blog Post)

Video – Click or tap to play

My Comments

Google premiered the idea of smart displays based on their Google Assistant (Home) platform at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2018. This is seen as an intent by Google to answer Amazon’s Echo Show smart display and they had Lenovo and JBL register their intent by presenting prototype products at that trade show. Lenovo even exhibited two models – a baseline unit with an 8” display and a premium unit with a 10” display.

Now Lenovo have made these Smart Displays available to the US market. Here, they will be made available through most of the well-known online and bricks-and-mortar stores who sell household technology like Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, Costco and Sams Club, as well as being available direct through Lenovo.com.

The baseline model has an 8” screen with a 1280×800 resolution and a single full-range 10-watt speaker and being sold for USD$199.99. The premium model has a 10” display with a 1920×1200 resolution, two full-range speakers and a bamboo finish on the back for USD$249.99. Here, even the baseline model offers a larger display than what the Amazon Echo Show is equipped with.

There is the access to Google’s online services including YouTube, Duo and Maps. Users can even sign up to YouTube TV to receive most of the USA’s over-the-air and cable TV networks on this device via the Internet for USD$40 per month. As well, users also have access to Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio along with most of the other popular content services available to the US market. They can also engage in videocalls using the Google Duo “over-the-top” IP-telephony platform thanks to an integrated video camera. Google Photos also allows these Smart Displays to become electronic picture frames as well.

Like other devices based on the Google Assistant (Home) platform, these Lenovo Smart Displays support the Google Assistant Routines which are effectively like “macros” or “scripts” that run a user-determined series of actions under one command. There is also the ability for these smart displays to interlink with “smart home” devices that work with the Google Assistant (Home) platform and can run video from compatible devices like the Nest Cam.

Individual privacy has been taken care of properly with a mechanical shutter that is slid over the camera along with a switch to mute the microphone. That feature is also important to prevent Google Assistant acting on “wake words” or other commands that may be said in normal conversation or uttered by a device.

From what I have seen of the photos posted online of this device, there is a clear concise graphically-rich user experience offered on the screen. It is rather than having a second-rate text-based display offered on the Amazon Echo Show devices. This is because the visual component of Google Assistant (Home) is based on the Android variant of the Google Assistant and it makes it easier to achieve a visual user interface across both Android devices and these Smart Displays.

But there is limited portrait-mode support amongst the app based offered for this platform. It is a sign that the visual-aid functionality for Google Assistant (Home) is still a “rough diamond” and Google and third parties will be needing to refine this functionality further.

I would see some of the other makes like JBL launch at least one Smart Display product for the Google Assistant (Home) ecosystem over the next few months, if not by year’s end.