Mobile Apps News from Nicole Hennig
Mobile Apps News
March 22, 2018
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the 58th issue of Mobile Apps News! I hope you'll enjoy this newsletter and spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about.
This issue includes news of:
A great augmented reality app: Sky Guide AR
Updates to the to-do list app: Things
A new book I'm working on: Siri, Alexa, and Other Digital Assistants: The Librarian’s Quick Guide
several tips, including how to turn off Facebook's face recognition features
voice computing, accessibility, thought-provoking articles, interesting stats, and articles about the future
Enjoy!
App News
Give to Those in Your Community with NeedHave (iOS and Android)
NeedHave is an interesting app for neighborhoods. If you need an item, tap Need. If you have an item to donate to others, tap Have. If there is a match, you can contact each other. It may take a while for this to be used in more local areas, but it’s worth a try to see if people in your local area are using it.
Pogue reviews this week's No. 1 most downloaded app: Sky Guide AR (iOS)
This augmented reality stargazing app has been around for a while. For some reason it’s going to the top of the sales charts lately. David Pogue writes a detailed review of it — he loves it (and so do I).
The Best Journaling App on iPhone Is One You’ve Probably Heard Of (iOS and Android)
This review talks about using the DayOne journaling app to create multiple journals for different purposes. I’ve been using this app every day for years, and these are some good ideas.
Things 3.4 Brings Powerful New Automation Features and App Integrations (iOS)
Thing is an excellent to-do list app that has become my favorite over the past year. They have recently added some features that allow other apps to send data to this app automatically. Read about it here.
Just for Fun
Want Animoji, But Not the iPhone X? Try These Apps Instead
A few fun apps! I especially like MyTalkingPet.
The Must App for Movies and TV Gets You Ready for the Oscars
The Oscars are over, but this is still a good app for keeping track of TV shows and movies you’ve seen and want to see.
3D Print Your Own Glasses
If you’re into 3D printing, maybe you can try this.
YouTube TV Is a Fresh and Clean Alternative to Cable
When the Winter Olympics were on, I tried two different live streaming TV apps (since I don’t have cable or any other TV). I did a one week free trial of Hulu Live TV and another week free trial of YouTube TV. I canceled them both since I don’t really need live TV, but it was a fun way to watch some of the Winter Olympics events live. Of the two, I found YouTube TV to have a MUCH better, more user-friendly interface.
My Offerings
Tracking Technology Trends – My Workshop at SLA in Baltimore
If you or someone you know is planning to attend the Special Libraries Association conference in Baltimore this June, come to my workshop, Tracking Technology Trends! I’d love to meet you in person. The workshop is on June 12. It will be based on content from my latest book: Keeping Up with Emerging Technologies: Best Practices for Information Professionals. Spread the word to people you know!
Siri, Alexa, and Other Digital Assistants: The Librarian’s Quick Guide
I’m working on a new short book, to published by Libraries Unlimited later this year. This is a fun and interesting topic to write about! It’s a rapidly changing technology, so I’m publishing this on a quick timeline. If you have ideas for what else you would like to see discussed in the book, let me know! See the table of contents.
Tips
Accessibility
Smart Speakers, Speech Recognition, and Accessibility
On the importance of recognizing speech impairments as a disability, and designing smart speakers to accommodate them.
Microsoft Soundscape Helps the Visually Impaired Navigate Cities
Soundscape is a new iOS app that gives blind or visually impaired people audios cues about what’s around them. Watch the included video with headphones to get a sense of how the 3D audio cues work. Very interesting.
Voice Computing
Inside the Alexa Prize
Interesting story about a contest for Alexa skill developers. Gets into what it takes to make a voice assistant feel truly conversational. It’s not easy.
Google Assistant Coming to 30 Languages and Adding Multi-lingual Support in 2018
It currently supports 8 languages, and by the end of the year it will support more than 30. In addition, there will be multi-lingual support, so that if you speak one language at home and a different one at work, or if people in one family speak different languages, it will be able to handle that. The multi-lingual feature will begin with only English, French, and German, and will later expand to more languages.
Lennar is Building Amazon Alexa Enabled Homes in Florida and Texas
Alexa will be pre-installed in these smart homes in Florida and in Austin, Texas.
Alexa's new Follow-Up Mode can handle back-to-back requests
If you turn this on in the settings, you can ask more than one question with out saying the wake word (Alexa) again. She listens for 5 seconds after each response in case you want to ask another question. If you don’t, she goes back to sleep. I like this feature.
Face Off Part 3 - Echo vs. Google Home vs. Cortana
“We tested the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Harman Kardon Invoke (powered by Microsoft’s Cortana) smart speakers, each with 800 queries, and found that Google Home answered 81% of the questions correctly vs. Echo at 64% and Cortana at 56%.” (I’ve seen other comparisons with different results, it really depends on which questions you ask). (Another comparison).
This is the Best Thing You Can Put on Your Nightstand (And in Your Entryway, And the Kitchen, And...)
A positive review of the Echo Spot (cute little round Alexa, with a screen), from Apartment Therapy.
7 Things Businesses Should Know About Alexa in the Workplace
Alexa is coming to Windows PC, meeting rooms, and more.
Thought-Provoking
Bose wants to augment your reality with sound, not vision
“Bose demonstrated a new technology it’s calling Bose AR at SXSW, with a fully functional 3D-printed prototype of the sunglasses that it plans to develop into a product over this year... The glasses can provide directions to the wearer, using stereo sound: If you’re turning left, the voice chimes in on the left ear, and on the right if you’re turning that way. Bose said it’s looking at using this technology in other form factors, like embedding it in a bike helmet …” Interesting, and imagine the potential for visually impaired people.
The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences
Adapted from Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
Is the E-Reader Dead?
Sales of e-readers like Kindles and Nooks are going down. Thoughts about why.
Our Gently Aging Avatars
Fun thoughts about what happens when people update their social media avatars after a few years. Sudden aging!
Blockchain in the Library? Researchers Explore Potential Applications
Blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies is a hot topic. “It could be used to build an enhanced metadata system for libraries and data centers, to keep track of digital-first sale rights and ownership, to connect networks of libraries and universities, or even to support community-based borrowing and skill sharing programs.”
Can These Small Satellites Solve the Riddle of Internet from Space?
These mini-fridge sized satellites are aiming to to bring affordable high-speed internet to places where laying fiber isn't practical, such as the Pacific islands. “Astranis is sticking to geosynchronous orbit, but it's building small, cheaper satellites that the company hopes will bring the costs for end-users into the same price range as cellular data.”
The Screen Time Debate is Pitting Parents Against Each Other
“Hell is other people’s screen time policies.”
Eight Years Later, Google Fiber Is A Faint Echo Of The Disruption We Were Promised
Too bad. “It’s a business made all the rougher by state and local regulators and lawmakers who’ve been in the pockets of entrenched providers like Comcast for the better part of a generation. In many states, incumbent ISPs like AT&T and Comcast quite literally write state telecom law, resulting in protectionist legislation that can often make competition impossible.”
Why the PDF Is Secretly the World's Most Important File Format
Interesting history. Some pros and cons of PDFs. “The history of our generation will probably be in PDF form.”
Interesting Statistics
Defining generations: Where Millennials end and post-Millennials begin
From Pew Research: “Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 22-37 in 2018) will be considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward will be part of a new generation.” “Baby Boomers grew up as television expanded dramatically, changing their lifestyles and connection to the world in fundamental ways. Generation X grew up as the computer revolution was taking hold, and Millennials came of age during the internet explosion. In this progression, what is unique for post-Millennials is that all of the above have been part of their lives from the start.”
Amazon Echo Maintains Large Market Share Lead in U.S. Smart Speaker User Base
For now, at 71.9%. But, see next link…
Google to Be Smart Speaker Market Share Leader in 2022
Google is expected to overtake Amazon in market share by 2022, with 48% of the market, Amazon at 37%, HomePod at 12%, and others at 3%.
New Voicebot Report Says Nearly 20% of U.S. Adults Have Smart Speakers
You can download a free report here with more interesting stats about smart-speaker usage.
Nearly one-in-five Americans now listen to audiobooks
Interesting stats on print, e-books, and audio books.
"Smart Speaker adoption is growing at a faster rate than the early days of smartphones." Infinite Dial 2018.
From a study by Edison Research.
About a quarter of U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online
“Overall, 77% of Americans go online on a daily basis. That figure includes the 26% who go online almost constantly, as well as 43% who say they go online several times a day and 8% who go online about once a day.”
11% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?
“The size of this group has changed little over the past three years, despite ongoing government and social service programs to encourage internet adoption in underserved areas. But that 11% figure is substantially lower than in 2000, when the Center first began to study the social impact of technology. That year, nearly half (48%) of American adults did not use the internet.”
The Future
The Veni, Vidi, Vici of Voice: How smart speakers, podcasts, and a massive pivot to voice will revolutionize how we navigate the world.
“Using a keyboard and mouse to manipulate a computer after successfully using voice feels about the same as using a command-line interface on an old UNIX machine after using a graphical interface. “
Self-driving cars will profoundly change the way people live
Many things will change with self-driving cars. Another interesting story, similar to the one I mentioned in the last issue of Mobile Apps News.
2025: Imagining the Future of Mobile Apps in Higher Education
A fictional story of a typical day for a college student using mobile apps in 2025.
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