It's likely that dining establishments will never again operate exactly as they did before coronavirus. Along with altering their physical designs to accommodate the demands of the pandemic, eateries must also turn to new models for order taking, making deliveries, and payment processing.
SugarCRM Adds AI to Sweeten the Customer Experience Pot
In this exclusive interview with SugarCRM CEO Craig Charlton, CRM Buyer discussed the current state of CRM platforms and how artificial intelligence is key to improved sales, service, and predictability in automated CX.
How Customer Conversations Can Create Personalization in E-Commerce
Ask anyone in the e-commerce space and they'll tell you: it's a numbers game. The numbers we rely on every day offer insights into every aspect of our competitive industry, from the click-through success of advertising campaigns to the conversion rates of specifically placed "Buy Now" buttons. Yet in this world of quantitative analytics, we're losing something: the human element.
The recent rise in digital wallet adoption shows a marked contrast with slow growth in digital wallet use in the U.S. prior to the pandemic. As more consumers become comfortable using digital wallets -- and possibly begin to prefer them -- it's not a stretch to conclude that many will embrace these shopping habits permanently, causing acceptance rates to continue to grow.
Amazon Vendors: Look at Direct Fulfillment Right Now
Amazon recently confirmed that it is facing fulfillment center capacity limitations. This is one reason why its Direct Fulfillment program that allows vendors to ship directly from their warehouses to their customers, is going to become increasingly prevalent. Amazon sellers should prepare to adopt Direct Fulfillment immediately. But why is this the perfect moment, and how can its benefits be maximized during the remainder of 2020?
A paradigm shift is taking place, moving away from legacy in-house IT business services. Here are five trends in cloud computing to consider when plotting an IT infrastructure strategy.
The pandemic has exposed one fundamental, seemingly contradictory reality: people like to shop online, but they also crave in-person experiences. This era has also made clear that there's an answer to this conundrum.
Forrester names NICE inContact CXone a leader in cloud contact center software
CXone is top ranked in “current offering” and “strategy” categories, and received the highest possible scores in 29 of 33 criteria used to evaluate cloud contact center providers.
Download a complimentary copy of the report to learn:
Which factors matter most when choosing cloud contact center software
How Forrester evaluates CXone relative to other cloud contact center vendors
Why now is the time to modernize to a cloud contact center platform
Women in Tech: 20 Trailblazers Share Their Journeys
Successful women in the tech trenches share their insights and tackle subjects ranging from how to search out a strong mentor to how to be one -- from how to advance in a large company to how to start your own firm.
This book is an excellent guide for students considering STEM courses, graduates pondering job choices, and career changers at any stage in life. It's also a useful tool for school and career counselors, recruiters, and HR pros eager to diversify their workplaces.
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Today, we're covering the history of Blue Origin, reviewing Android 11 and more. But first: three-thousand-two-hundred megapixels. Taken with sensors for the world's largest digital camera, it would comically take 378 4K ultra-high-definition TV screens to display one image in full size. The image fidelity is apparently so high, you could see a golf ball 15 miles away.
The camera will live in Stanford University's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) telescope in Chile, where researchers will study dark energy, dark matter and create the "largest astronomical movie of all time."
The sensor is actually 189 charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which each capture 16-megapixel images. So where is the image itself, you big tease? Well, it's still too early for that. These 3,200-megapixel images mean the world's largest digital camera has passed its important first test. The team still has challenges ahead to build the rest of the camera, but final testing should start mid-2021 — just think of the selfies.
Note: We're having some issues with SSL certification, and are working to fix that as soon as possible.
— Mat
'Star Trek: Discovery' season 3 trailer shows the crew landing in the future
Season 3 will be out for streaming on October 15th.
CBS All Access has released the official trailer for the third season of Star Trek: Discovery, giving you a glimpse of what's in store for its characters after they went into a wormhole last season. (It's a bit late for spoilers, I think…) It shows Commander Michael Burnham and the rest of the USS Discovery crew making a one-way trip and landing in an unknown future where the Federation has mostly collapsed. This should be interesting, given the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery was set before the beginning of the original Star Trek series. Now, we're going to the other side of the timeline. Continue reading.
Android 11 review: An incremental update that needs some polish
The new OS finally brings built-in screen recording.
Engadget
Most of the updates to Google's mobile OS are subtle, focused on communications, media controls and, importantly, privacy settings. According to Cherlynn Low, the update brings useful features, like expanded power menu controls, and also offers a long-awaited built-in screen recorder. The new Conversations section in notifications might need work, but the good news is you can disable most of Android 11's changes if you hate them. Continue reading.
Razer made the gum gamers didn't know they needed
I can't think of much worse than 'gamer gum'.
Razer, makers of pretty decent neon-decorated gaming hardware is going into gum. As a follow up to its focus-sharpening Razer Respawn drink, and to meet an apparent need for fortified gum, the company has rolled out Respawn By 5 gaming gum.
Razer has partnered with Wrigley's 5 gum (remember their mid-2000s sci-fi commercials?) to make a gum specifically for gamers. Infused with B vitamins and green tea extract, the product helps improve your focus and reaction time, if you believe the company's press release. The price of getting an extra edge? 10 packs for $27.99. Continue reading.
Samsung will stop supplying Huawei with phone chips amid US sanctions
Korea's SK Hynix also plans to stop selling parts to the company.
According to South Korean newspaper Chosun llbo, Samsung and memory manufacturer SK Hynix plan to suspend selling parts to the Chinese company on September 15th. That's the day new restrictions the US Commerce Department announced partway through August go into effect.
Those restrictions prohibit non-American companies from selling components to Huawei that they developed using equipment or software made in the US. The ban has already affected Huawei's chip development.
Huawei's Richard Yu recently said the Mate 40 would feature Huawei's final high-end Kirin processor due to the trade sanctions. The ban is likely to hurt Samsung and SK Hynix as much as it does Huawei. In SK Hynix's case, 40 percent of its $13.3 billion revenue in the first half of 2020 came from exports to China. Continue reading.
Spare a thought for the PR arm of Microsoft, enjoying their Labor Day time off, when almost every major unanswered new Xbox question gets answered at once. If there was any particular surprise, it's how small the cheaper Series S will be. A render suggests a pretty tempting $299 price. Compared to the bigger Series X, there are some compromises: The disc-less console, once codenamed "Lockhart," will reportedly have less RAM and a less powerful CPU than the Series X.
Talking of which, the Series X will apparently set you back $499 and be available on November 10th — the same date as the smaller Series S. According to Windows Central, Microsoft is going to offer a $35-per-month Xbox All Access financing option for the Series X in a bid to claw back some gamers from Sony's PlayStation. It added there would be a global rollout for both consoles. It sounds like Microsoft means business.
— Mat
Meet the Game Boy that doesn't need batteries
The future.
The original Game Boy, with four simple AA batteries, could play games for about 10 to 15 hours. It was equal parts impressive (for the time) and frustrating for kids with minimal disposable income. Especially if you didn't have rechargeable cells. Well, the future is here.
A research team of computer scientists from Northwestern University in Illinois and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has developed a Game Boy that uses no batteries at all.
Instead, all you need is some sunlight and frantic button mashing. The solar panels attached to the front of the device provide its primary power, with your button presses generating additional juice. Technically, you could play it forever. Continue reading.
TikTok is trying to stop a suicide video from spreading
The company has been banning accounts that try to re-upload the clip.
Since Sunday evening, TikTok has been trying to stop the spread of a graphic video showing a man committing suicide with a gun. TikTok says it has tried to stop the video from circulating by banning the accounts of people who try to re-upload it multiple times.
"Our systems have been automatically detecting and flagging these clips for violating our policies against content that displays, praises, glorifies or promotes suicide," a spokesperson for the company said.
The episode highlights a significant weakness in TikTok's algorithm. While most social networks have struggled to moderate their platforms, the way TikTok works, with its recommendation engine at the center, makes it difficult for the company to prevent content like this from spreading altogether. Continue reading.
Motorola's budget G9 Plus leaks with a 64-megapixel camera and big battery
It features a hole-punch front camera and 1080p display for around $300.
Orange Slovakia
Motorola's latest leak shows how its budget smartphones are pretty decent value. The entry-level Moto G9 Plus (appearing in an Orange Slovakia listing, via Roland Quandt) has four rear cameras including a 64-megapixel main camera, along with a huge 5,000 mAh battery — all for €255, about $300. There's even a hole-punch camera, for that full-screen smartphone look. Continue reading.
Italy is investigating Apple, Google and Dropbox cloud storage services
It's concerned the services don't adequately explain how they use data.
Italy's competition watchdog is investing Apple, Google and Dropbox, TechCrunch reports. In a press release, the AGCM announced it opened six investigations into the companies' cloud storage services. It's concerned the services fail to adequately explain how they collect and employ user data for commercial purposes. It's also investigating unfair clauses in the services' contracts, terms that exempt the services from some liability and the prevalence of English versions of contracts over Italian versions. Continue reading.
India is extending its influence over major tech players. Streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar and 12 other companies, have signed a self-regulatory code to stay on the good side of India's regulators. This includes common approaches to age labels and content descriptions as well as a way to report any violations of the system. Streaming services will have to set up complaint departments, internal committees or both to deal with any issues.
The Indian government has been hesitant to censor streaming services and would rather they keep themselves in check. It's one of several moves the government has made recently to address tech companies' influence in the country. Last week, it banned more than 100 apps with ties to China, including major game titles like PUBG.
In other news, following up on my favorite story from last week, the Amazon 'phone tree' hack is no more.
Withings' ScanWatch is the best hybrid smartwatch I've tried so far
It packs ECG and SpO2 sensors.
Withings' latest smartwatch is the first to offer a complete suite of health-monitoring tools inside a watch. Announced in January, the ScanWatch replaces the Steel HR as the French company's new flagship timepiece. Or, it will, since it's still working its way through the FDA for clearance in the US. While it's not a radical departure from its predecessor, Dan Cooper has been testing one out, and he's infatuated. Continue reading.
FCC chairman cited false broadband data in spite of warnings
Officials had worried about the data for years.
The FCC has proposed fining internet provider BarrierFree for providing false subscriber data, but not before it used some of that data to further its own claims.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used BarrierFree's data in February 2019 to tout improved rural broadband access, even though his agency had warned of inaccurate data on this subject for years. The FCC repeatedly warned BarrierFree about missing data starting in 2015 and raised concerns about what it received when the company finally sent in the details in March 2018.
BarrierFree subsequently missed a September filing, and Pai was cheerleading the incorrect figures the same day the FCC warned the provider about another deadline. Continue reading.
Amazon foils 'phone tree' hack
AKA my favorite tech story of 2020 so far.
Amazon appears to have stopped freelance delivery drivers' workaround that used phones in trees to game delivery route assignments. Contract drivers talking to Bloomberg said they're now getting more routes even when they're miles away from the Whole Foods locations that had been hubs for the scheme. The tree-borne phones have vanished along with the people lurking around them, one Chicago driver said.
The tree-phone move reportedly exploited the behavior of the Amazon Flex dispatch system. Rogue drivers synced their phones with those in the trees, helping them snap up deliveries that would otherwise go to competing drivers. The company hasn't confirmed the move, but told Bloomberg that waiting in the parking lot or using store WiFi was "not an effective way" to claim delivery orders. Continue reading.
Virgin Galactic's final SpaceShipTwo tests begin October 22nd
Then, Sir Richard Branson is apparently headed into space.
CNBC has discovered that Virgin Galactic will conduct the first of its last two crewed SpaceShipTwo tests on October 22nd using Spaceport America in New Mexico. If all goes well, the tests will be the last before Virgin's space tourism starts in earnest. It hopes to fly company founder Sir Richard Branson into space sometime in the first quarter of 2021, kicking off the company's tourist business.
The forthcoming mission will have two test pilots on board, while an already acknowledged second flight will carry four "mission specialists." The carrier, WhiteKnightTwo, will go through four-hour test flights between October 1st and October 7th. Continue reading.
On Saturday morning a couple of classic game series have surprising news for us. First is Shenmue, which follows last year's Shenmue III effort with news of a new anime series that's coming soon. Sega fans can tune in to the Crunchyroll Virtual Industry panel at noon for more information.
Galaxy Z Fold 2, NVIDIA RTX 3000 and Intel's 11th-gen CPUs
Cherlynn and Devindra are joined by senior mobile editor Chris Velazco to discuss his impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 2 after spending a day and a half with it. Then, our hosts geek out over NVIDIA and Intel's latest processors, before blazing through the plethora of IFA 2020 news from companies like TCL, Qualcomm, Lenovo and Samsung (again).
NVIDIA's RTX 3000 cards make counting teraflops pointless
Cores keep changing.
We should all know by now that a spec sheet can't tell you everything about performance. But until now, teraflops has been a reliable measure of graphics performance. Aaron Souppouris explains why NVIDIA's new Ampere architecture -- check out that Doom Eternal demo if you need to see it at work -- and the AMD tech inside new consoles will both need more detailed measuring sticks. Continue reading.
macOS Big Sur preview: Five things you should know before installing
It's stable enough, but there are enough compatibility issues to make waiting a better option.
Thinking about getting an early start on Apple's next desktop operating system? Nathan Ingraham has spent a few weeks using the public beta of Big Sur and has some advice you should read before taking the leap. Continue reading.
This week's best deals: $300 off the Razer Blade 15 and more
And Hisense's 55-inch 4K Android TV is down to $280.
Labor Day will soon be upon us (if you can believe it) and companies are ringing in the holiday with a slew of electronics deals. The Razer Blade 15 gaming laptop with a 4K OLED display remains $300 cheaper than usual and you can still get Apple's AirPods Pro or standard AirPods for $30 off. You can also save on Satechi accessories, Fire TV Edition smart TVs and a capable Segway electric scooter before the holiday weekend is up.
Here are all the best deals from the week that you can still snag today, and remember to follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for more updates. Continue reading.
