Our verdict of the Nanoleaf Canvas:
The Nanoleaf Canvas is a stunning, vibrant, modular lighting centrepiece. Get creative and make your own design; then load your own unique music reactive lighting scenes.
19 December 2018
Not Just Amazon: 27 Online Shopping Sites With Free 2-Day Shipping
Amazon Prime doesn’t come cheap, but if you do a lot of online ordering and are interested in all the other features it offers, it’s absolutely worth $99 a year to get free two-day shipping. While Amazon’s prices aren’t always the cheapest, the guaranteed two-day shipping can usually balance things out. But it’s not the only online retailer offering this expedited service.
Amazon’s free two-day shipping applies to a vast majority of its items, and Amazon is upping its game in some areas, offering free same-day delivery. Other retailers, however, are catching up, offering free two-day (or faster) shipping as well, on a list that is constantly growing.
Who are the retailers giving Amazon a run for its money? Here they are in alphabetical order, with all the key details on what restrictions and options are available to customers.
1. Apple
Apple offers free two-day shipping on in-stock items and free next-day shipping on in-stock iPhones. You can tell which items are eligible for free two-day delivery when they are in your cart.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: Customized Macs, engraved items, and orders paid for with financing or by bank transfer.
- Locations: Residents of Puerto Rico don’t get guaranteed two-day shipping, with the shipment taking anywhere from two to five days.
2. Backcountry
You have to spend at least $50 on items from outdoor gear retailer Backcountry to get free two-day shipping and purchases. According to the website, this is a limited time offer.
- Minimums: $50.
- Exclusions: Complete bikes, bike frames, bike wheels, travel cases, ABS airbag packs or cylinders, kayaks, SUP boards, surfboards, crash pads, cargo boxes, car racks, indoor cycles, rooftop tents, & all other freight items. Not valid on pre-orders or backorders.
- Locations: Contiguous United States.
3. Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble members get free 1 to 3 day shipping.
- Minimum: None.
- Exclusions: All items identified as eligible for Free Shipping will qualify for the Free Shipping program.
- Location: Contiguous US only. Members shipping to P.O. Boxes, APOs, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and US Protectorates get free delivery but without the 1 to 3 business day guarantee.
4. Best Buy
Best Buy offers members of their My Best Buy Elite Plus program free two-day shipping on qualifying purchases. To qualify, you must have $3,500 in purchases per calendar year. Best Buy does add the caveat that additional processing time may apply.
- Minimum: None.
- Exclusions: Large home delivery items, and other select items.
- Location: Excludes APO/FPO addresses.
5. Birchbox
Birchbox offers free next day delivery, but it doesn’t come cheap.
- Minimum: $150.
- Exclusions: Nail polish, perfumes, and aerosols.
- Locations: Contiguous United States. Excludes P.O. boxes and APO/FPO addresses.
6. Blue Nile
This jewelry retailer offers free two-day shipping on purchases over $500. Purchases over $1,000 get free next-day delivery. Orders over $1,000 require a signature upon delivery.
- Minimums: $500.
- Exclusions: None.
- Locations: Excludes P.O. box addresses.
7. Camp Saver
Camp Saver offers free two-day shipping on over 700 products, but be sure to use the coupon 2DAYAIR on checkout for the offer to apply.
- Minimums: $99.
- Exclusions: Only valid for select products and eligible products change continuously.
- Locations: Excludes Alaska, Hawaii, US Territories, and APO addresses.
8. Competitive Cyclist
This online cycling gear store offers free two-day shipping, but only during promotional periods.
- Minimum: $50.
- Exclusions: Bikes, bike frames, bike wheels, cargo boxes, car racks, indoor cycles, and all freight items.
- Locations: Excludes Alaska, Hawaii, US Territories, and P.O. boxes.
9. Costco
Costco offers its members free two-day shipping on select items. Orders must be placed by noon and they don’t offer weekend deliveries.
- Minimum: $75.
- Exclusions: Applies only to eligible non-perishable food and household supplies.
- Locations: Excludes Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
10. CVS
CVS offers free 1 to 4 day shipping on select non-prescription orders. You can also get free 1-2 day shipping on prescription orders that include at least one non-prescription store item selected from the list of qualifying items made available during the checkout process. Orders must be placed before 4 PM.
- Minimum: None.
- Exclusions: Hazardous materials including aerosols, aerosol inhalers, and flammable, volatile or corrosive materials like rubbing alcohol, astringents, fragrances, nail polish, and nail polish remover. Must include eligible products.
- Locations: Contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and APO/FPO/DPO addresses.
11. Gear Coop
Outdoor gear retailer Gear Coop offers shoppers free two-day shipping.
- Minimum: $50.
- Exclusions: None.
- Locations: Contiguous United States. Excludes P.O. boxes, APO, FPO, and DPO addresses.
12. Home Depot
Home Depot offers free two-day shipping and free standard shipping on select items.
- Minimum: $45.
- Exclusions: Available for “thousands of in-demand home improvement items.”
- Locations: Excludes APO/FPO, P.O. Boxes, or US Territories.
13. Jet
Jet offers free two- to five-day shipping, and to qualify, orders must be placed by 2:00 PM in your time zone.
- Minimum: $35.
- Exclusions: Two-day shipping, in particular, applies to what Jet describes as “everyday essentials.” Everyday essentials include household products like cleaning products, pet supplies, and snacks, and are labeled. Some expensive items like some computer monitors are also available for free two-day shipping. Freight items are excluded.
- Locations: Contiguous United States.
14. Moosejaw
Moosejaw also offers free two-day shipping with a minimum purchase.
- Minimum: $49.
- Exclusions: Oversized or freight orders.
- Locations: US excluding Hawaii and Alaska.
15. Patagonia
To get free two-day shipping for Patagonia you have to place your order by 3PM ET.
- Minimum: $75.
- Exclusions:
- Locations: Physical addresses only. Delivery to Alaska and Hawaii may take three days. Not available for PO Box and APO/FPO addresses.
16. Ray-Ban
While you might not want to purchase sunglasses without trying them on first, eyewear retailer Ray-Ban offers across-the-board free 1-3 day shipping on all standard orders.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: None.
- Locations: 50 US states and the District of Columbia. Residents of Hawaii and Alaska should allow additional time for delivery/. Excludes P.O. boxes.
17. Reverb
Online musical product marketplace Reverb offers free two-day shipping on a select list of products. Items ship within one business day.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: Only available for select products.
- Locations: Continental US.
18. Shop Your Way
Like Amazon Prime, Shop Your Way offers a program with a membership-based option to get free two-day shipping. The program, Shop Your Way Max, is applicable on select items on the Shop Your Way website as well as K-Mart and Sears.
To get free shipping on qualifying items, you’ll have to sign up for an annual membership that costs $39, and comes with a few other perks including points and exclusive offers.
- Minimums: $59.
- Exclusions: Non-qualifying items, marketplace items, oversized or heavy items, and appliances. It also excludes the following types of products: furniture, paper towels, bath tissue, dog food, cat litter, and laundry detergent.
- Locations: Excludes P.O. boxes and US territories.
19. Sunglass Hut
Like Ray-Ban, Sunglass Hut offers free two-day shipping across the board. Orders must be placed before 2:00 PM EST. Free next-day shipping is also available on orders of $250 and over.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: Premium Engraving orders.
- Locations: 50 US states. Excludes APO/FPO addresses and US territories.
20. Sephora
Like Amazon, Sephora does charge a little extra for free two-day shipping, but it’s only $15 for one year. You also get the option of a special overnight rate of $5.95.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: Hazardous items (including aerosols and alcohol-based products).
- Locations: Contiguous United States (excludes Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, P.O. boxes, and APO/FPO addresses).
21. ShopRunner
Annual membership on ShopRunner costs $79 and gets you free two-day shipping on eligible items from a long list of retailers and brands, ranging from PetSmart to Neiman Marcus. Brands include Tory Burch, Tommy Hilfiger, Karl Lagerfeld, and Hugo Boss. Eligible items will feature the ShopRunner logo. World Mastercard and World Elite Mastercard holders don’t have to pay the $79 membership fee.
- Minimums: $25–$49.99 (some retailers will require a minimum purchase of $25, with Staples alone requiring a minimum purchase of $49.99).
- Exclusions: Non-qualifying items.
- Locations: Excludes shipments to a P.O. box or APO/FPO/DPO address. Eligible items will be delivered to Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico, but not all regions can be reached in two business days.
22. Steve Madden
Steve Madden customers can get a special offer of free two-day shipping with a minimum. This offer can’t be combined with other offers.
- Minimums: $50.
- Exclusions: Non-qualifying items. Clearance items don’t qualify.
- Locations: Contiguous United States. Excludes Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Military bases.
23. Target
Target is the latest to get into the free two-day shipping game. There are some restrictions including either a $35 minimum purchase or the use of your Target REDCard. Target does the have the occasional promotion—for example, doing away with the minimum purchase during the holiday season.
- Minimums: $35.
- Exclusions: Items with freight charges, items fulfilled by Walmart.com Marketplace sellers, personalized items, eGift Cards, and any item not marked eligible on its product page.
- Locations: Item eligibility and assortment vary by market and are determined by the location of the item and the destination ZIP code.
24. Uniqlo
Clothing store Uniqlo offers free two-day shipping with orders placed by 12 PM EST.
- Minimums: $150.
- Exclusions: None.
- Locations: Excludes Hawaii, Alaska, APO/FPO/US territories, and PO box addresses.
25. Verizon Wireless
Phone provider Verizon offers free-two day shipping on orders placed from Monday to Friday by 8:00 PM ET.
- Minimums: $49 (if purchasing accessories only).
- Exclusions: None.
- Locations: Excludes Hawaii and Alaska.
26. Walmart
Walmart offers free two-day shipping on eligible items with the free two-day shipping logo. To get free shipping, you must place your order before 2:00 PM in your delivery time zone, but Walmart does say it will do its best to get you two-day shipping after the cutoff time.
- Minimums: $35.
- Exclusions: Applies only to items that are eligible for two-day shipping that are sold by Walmart and not a Marketplace seller.
- Locations: Excludes Hawaii, Alaska, APO/FPO addresses, and addresses in US territories. (They get free 3 to 5 day shipping on eligible orders over $35.)
27. Warehouse Sites
Several of the Warehouse sites offer free two-day shipping, but with some different restrictions. Running Warehouse offers free two-day shipping on all purchases regardless of price. Orders placed by 10:00 PM PST will be shipped from the warehouse within one business day. Delivery is guaranteed in 2 business days once the package departs their warehouse.
- Minimums: None.
- Exclusions: Tennis balls, orders containing demo racquets, back ordered shipments and shipments that weigh over 12 lbs.
- Locations: Contiguous United States.
Sister sites Tennis Warehouse and Racquetball Warehouse offer free two-day shipping, but require a minimum purchase.
- Minimums: $75.
- Exclusions: Racquetballs, orders containing demo racquets, back ordered shipments, and shipments that weigh over 12 lbs.
- Locations: Contiguous United States.
While all these sites offer free two-day shipping to US residents, there are plenty of stores that offer free international shipping.
Read the full article: Not Just Amazon: 27 Online Shopping Sites With Free 2-Day Shipping
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Facebook Messenger Adds New Camera Tricks
Facebook Messenger has some new camera tricks for you to try. The social network has added new Boomerang and Selfie modes, added support for augmented reality stickers, and added a bunch of holiday-themed filters and stickers to help you stand out from the crowd.
Facebook Messenger’s New Camera Trickery
Messenger’s first new trick is a Selfie mode. This lets you take portrait-style photos, with your face kept in focus and the background blurred out. Facebook has designed Selfie mode so it offers the perfect angle and perfect lighting for your perfect moment.
Introducing Selfie Mode in the Messenger camera… perfect lighting ? perfect angle ? perfect moment ? pic.twitter.com/2SPpoWsDck
— Messenger (@messenger) December 17, 2018
Messenger also now has a Boomerang mode. For the uninitiated, Boomerang videos are short, looping videos which play forwards and then backwards. Boomerang was popularized on Instagram, so this is definitely a case of Messenger stealing off its sibling.
When you need an instant replay, use the new Boomerang feature in the Messenger camera to capture any moment on repeat ? pic.twitter.com/KA3OA2EAlk
— Messenger (@messenger) December 17, 2018
You can also now add animated and interactive stickers to your photos and videos. These are the same stickers you can use in text chats. You just need to press the Camera icon next to the sticker in a chat to add it as an augmented reality element.
Time to up your sticker game. You can now add animated and interactive stickers powered by AR in Messenger! pic.twitter.com/rUhsePh1Pl
— Messenger (@messenger) December 17, 2018
These new options means Facebook Messenger now has five different camera modes to choose from. There’s Normal, Boomerang, Selfie, Video, and Text. You can easily switch between all five thanks to the new UI that has also clearly been inspired by Instagram.
All Facebook Apps Now Do the Same Things
With Facebook owning both Messenger and Instagram, it’s obviously trying to align the two apps more closely. This creates a consistent experience, which helps users instinctively know how to navigate the UI and how to use features as they’re added.
The problem is once Facebook’s various apps all look the same, feel the same, and do the same things, what’s the point? You may as well just use one and uninstall the others. And with that in mind here’s how to deactivate Facebook Messenger.
Read the full article: Facebook Messenger Adds New Camera Tricks
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Nanoleaf Canvas: Coolest. Lights. Ever.
Modular, customizable, sound and even touch reactive: the Nanoleaf Canvas is just stunning. It’s a vibrant and creative smart lighting installation for your wall or ceiling, with all the smart features you’ve come to expect.
What’s In The Box?
In the starter kit you’ll find:
- 1 controller panel
- 8 standard panels
- Power adaptor
- 8 connector strips
- Lots of mounting stickers (3 per panel, plus a spare or two)
Each panel measures 6 inches (15cm) square. The controller panel lights up, just as the standard panels do, but it also houses the microphone and capacitive buttons.
The starter kit costs $250 (also available from HomeDepot). Additional panels can be purchased in packs of four, at a cost of $80. UK folks: unusually, the Nanoleaf Canvas is actually cheaper for you, available for £180.
Design Your Layout
Before mounting your Canvas, you’ll need to use the layout designer in the app to plan your design. You can randomise a starting point, then drag and drop panels until you have your desired shape.
Since the rear of the Canvas panels is asymmetrical, you’ll need to refer to the link view when connecting the panels. Use three mounting stickers per panel. Some panels will need to rotated in order for the connectors to line up, and the app will let you know if your layout is invalid (as in the screenshot above).
The upside to this slightly more complex connector arrangement is that panels can be offset, and not simply laid out like a pixel block display (though you can of course do that too, if you wish, you’re not forced to offset the panels). This allows for far more creative freedom, and meant I was able to create a small circular design from just the 9 panels included in the starter set.
Your controller panel can be located anywhere on your design, as can the point at which you inject power from the adaptor. So as long as you follow the link layout outlined in the designer, putting your pattern together couldn’t be easier.
Trio of Smarts: Alexa, Google, and HomeKit
Nanoleaf support all three of the major voice assistant and smart home standards, which we applaud. All three systems support color and scene selections via voice control. Adding the Canvas to our HomeKit was as simple as scanning the QR code on the power adaptor: the app even knew exactly how our design was laid out, without any input from us.
Note that like most smart home products, Nanoleaf requires a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network. If your router only broadcast a 5GHz network, you won’t be able to connect these.
Not a fan of voice assistants? Not a problem. The app has a few scenes out of the box, but we’d strongly recommend you connect it to Wi-Fi anyway, then use the Nanoleaf app to download new scenes. As well as those made by Nanoleaf, the community has created thousands, all free to download. If that’s not enough, use the designer to create your unique patterns and color pallete.
Play Games on Your Lights
New to the Nanoleaf Canvas is a touch sensor in each panel. As well as adding a little interactivity to basic color scenes, you can enable gesture controls, such as double tap to turn on or off, or swipe up to increase brightness.
This feature has also opened up some more interesting interactive scenes. Currently available to download are:
- Conway’s Game of Life simulation
- Whack a Mole
- Simon
- Memory
- Pacman
Some of these games—like Conway’s Game of Life or Pacman—don’t make much sense on a small, 9 panel circular design. For those you really need a much larger install, well beyond that of a typical consumer budget. Simon and Memory games work great even on smaller installs, though. Obviously, they aren’t the most compelling gaming experiences ever, but it’s a fun feature for children or guests. I can see these being a hit in hotels or corporate lobbies.
Unlike color and rhythm scenes, there’s currently no way to create your own interactive experiences. For STEM teaching, this could be a great avenue for Nanoleaf explore in future, so I’m interested to see where this goes.
Nanoleaf Rhythm Light Panels: What’s the Difference?
Some of you may recall my review of the Nanoleaf Rhythm Light Panels earlier in the year. Those are still available for $230, compared to $250 for the Canvas. So what’s the difference?
- Obviously, these are square, while the Light Panels are triangular. This might seem superficial, but it’s easier to translate a logo or think of a specific design made from square pixels, than it it to think of it in triangles.
- The Light Panels were limited to connecting in only a single way on each side. The Canvas’ connector pattern means panels can be connected either straight on, or offset, though this does complicate installation a little. This allows for even more creative freedom with laying out your design.
- The Light Panels had a separate controller and Rhythm module which plugged into the panels. This was a little clunky, and restricted your design in terms of where the power could be injected. The Canvas integrates the discreet capacitive control buttons and rhythm module into a single, special panel. Apart from the buttons, the control panel looks and behaves the same as any other, and can be placed anywhere convenient in the design. Power can then be injected from any edge with a slimline cable.
- The Canvas adds a touch sensor to every panel.
Otherwise, the products are functionally identical. The same Nanoleaf app is used, the same color and rhythm scenes can be downloaded, and the same smart voice features work on both products.
How Does Nanoleaf Canvas Compare?
At $250 for a 9 panel set, and $80 for an additional pack of 4 panels, the Nanoleaf Canvas doesn’t come cheap–but then smart lighting rarely is. To put that in perspective, a 5 x 10 pixel Canvas installation would set you back about $1000. The Canvas emits about 100 lumens per panel, so the starter kit has a total light output of a little more than an a 60w bulb (that is, enough to light up an entire room).
Comparing the Nanoleaf Canvas to Philips Hue smart lighting is fair: they both offer a similar feature set of voice control, smart home integration, and music reactive modes. Philips offers a more developed and open API, so you’ll find lots of third party apps and integrations to extend functionality. You can even use your Hue bulbs as an ambilight for your PC. A Hue starter kit including four color bulbs costs around $200. Each bulbs emits about 800 lumens. Purely in terms of light output, Hue represents better value, though you will of course be limited in terms of suitable light fixings. Standalone Hue devices such as lightstrips are also available, but cost considerably more. The Nanoleaf Canvas is entirely standalone.
However, while a smart bulb such as Philips Hue is effective only when there’s little or no ambient light, the Canvas panels are perfectly visible in daytime. Each panel concentrates its color into the frosted panel facade. The results are incredible.
The Canvas gives you the best of both worlds. It’s a stunning centrepiece during the day, and a great ambient or party light at night. The photos and videos really don’t do it justice, and I had no end of difficulty exposing shots properly. In reality, the colors are utterly vibrant, night or day. There’s really no comparable product on the market.
If you don’t particularly care about the touch sensitive features, the original Nanoleaf Rhythm Light Panels are available for a slightly cheaper $230. They are otherwise functionally identical. The only real difference is the aesthetic of pixel blocks versus triangles, so ultimately it comes down to which aesthetic you prefer.
Enter the Competition!
Nanoleaf Canvas Starter KitRead the full article: Nanoleaf Canvas: Coolest. Lights. Ever.
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How to Watch Local Channels on Roku for Free: 7 Methods to Try
If you have cut the cord and bought a Roku device, you can still access your local TV networks. Here’s how to watch local channels on Roku for free!
The Drawbacks of Using Roku to Watch Local TV
Most importantly, due to various licensing and distribution deals, the local TV channels you access through your Roku are not necessarily going to be identical to that which you’d receive through cable TV or an OTA antenna.
The issue is especially prevalent when it comes to news and movies. Luckily, there are lots of other ways for cord cutters to watch news broadcasts, while a Netflix subscription will offer all the movies you could possibly want.
1. Official Local TV Roku Channels
If you want to watch local channels on Roku, your first port of call should be the official Roku Channel Store. Here, you will be able to find both network-affiliated and third-party options.
Today, there are more than 100 free local news channels in the store, including WSB-TV Channel 2, News 12, WBRC FOX 6 News, WTVF News Channel 5, Boston 25, FOX13 Memphis News, WPXI Channel 11 News, and KGTV 10 News San Diego.
The best way to browse the free local channels is to head to the News and Weather section of the Channel Store, either on the web or through your Roku device.
2. Third-Party Local Channels on Roku
If your local TV stations don’t have their own Roku app, you still have a few different avenues available to you.
The first is to check out third-party apps. There are two worth serious consideration.
NewsON
We’ve discussed NewsON many times here at MakeUseOf. It’s a joint project between five of the largest TV station groups in the United States: ABC, Cox Media Group, Hearst Television, Media General, and Raycom Media. Since launch, several more stations groups have also come on board.
The result is that NewsON now offers 170 TV stations from 108 American towns and cities for free. According to its own literature, almost 85 percent of the US population now has access to at least one local channel.
Haystack TV
Another one of our favorites is Haystack TV. It’s arguably the best option for cord-cutters who want to watch national and local news.
From a local TV standpoint, Haystack TV has partnerships with more than 150 local news stations. They include CBS Los Angeles KCAL, CBS Pittsburgh KDKA, CBS Chicago WBBM, CBS New York WCBS, CBS Boston WBZ, CBS San Francisco KPIX, NBC Nebraska, and many more.
Haystack is customizable. The more you watch it, the more it learns about your interests and preferences so it can show you the content you care about.
3. Private Local Channels on Roku
One of Roku’s best features is its ability to add private channels. They are apps created by hobbyists and independent developers which have not been published in the official store.
If you do a bit of digging, you might be able to find a private channel for your area. Just make sure you’re legally allowed to watch the content before hitting the install button.
Read our article to learn how to add private channels to your Roku device. We’ve also written about some of the best private channels for Roku that you should install right now.
4. Major Network Apps on Roku
If you still have a cable TV subscription, you will be able to download the official apps from all the main networks, including ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and PBS.
Some local affiliates of the big networks stream their content via the parent network’s app. Check directly with the TV provider to find out whether your local channels are supported.
5. Use an OTA Antenna With Roku
If you have a Roku TV (a television with the Roku operating system built in), you can hook an HDTV antenna up to it and watch OTA TV through the Roku interface. Just follow the on-screen instructions to begin.
You’d be surprised about the amount of content that’s available with an antenna—you’ll get everything from the NFL to popular TV series.
Modern antennas are neither expensive nor visual eyesores. With a mid-range model, you should be able to pick up channels from more than 100 miles away (depending on your local terrain).
6. Local Channels on Roku Using YouTube
Another way of watching local channels is to check out YouTube.
An ever-increasing number of local networks stream 24/7 broadcasts of their feeds. At the very least, you should be able to find standalone clips, segments, and episodes so that you can always stay abreast of the local goings-on.
To use YouTube, you will need to download the official YouTube app for your Roku device and sign in with your Google account. (The presence of an official YouTube app is one of Roku’s advantages over the Amazon Fire TV.)
7. Screen Mirroring to Roku
Unfortunately, Roku devices do not provide a native way to browse the internet. That’s problematic if your local TV channels only stream content on their website and do not have any third-party apps showing the footage.
But don’t despair, as there is a workaround—if you’re an Android or Windows user. It’s called Miracast.
Miracast is like a wireless HDMI cable. It lets you mirror your screen on supported devices, a bit like a Chromecast. All new Android phones and Windows computers have Miracast included.
To get started on Windows, open the Action Center and click on Connect. On Android, go to Settings > Connected Devices > Cast.
Watching Local Channels on Roku: Paid Options
Finally, remember there are some paid apps available to you as well. The most popular are DirecTV, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, Sling, and YouTube TV. Each of them has some form of local programming for you to watch. Make use of the free trials to see if they are right for you.
Indeed, it’s easy to argue that YouTube TV is the best cable replacement for cord-cutters. Check out our article to learn why that is the case.
Read the full article: How to Watch Local Channels on Roku for Free: 7 Methods to Try
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Twitter rolls out ‘sparkle button’ to let users hide the algorithmic feed
Twitter is giving users the ability to easily switch between seeing the latest tweets first and seeing the company’s algorithmically chosen “Top Tweets” when they open the app.
The company began testing this feature a few weeks ago, but they are officially rolling it out globally to all iOS users today, with Android and desktop users likely getting access to the feature sometime in January, according to the company.
This is part-resolution and part extended cop-out for Twitter, which has spent the better part of the past couple of years figuring out how to satisfy a need for growth with vocal, loyal users who want the act of opening the app to continue to mean getting the immediate pulse of the internet. The algorithmic timeline is probably a better business move for Twitter, something that will ensure that more causal users can get a more encapsulated experience when they open the app rather than a hodgepodge snapshot of their followers’ thoughts.
The company has explicitly said that the “Top Tweets” feature has increased both engagement and conversations on the app.
Twitter’s solution to its algorithmic ails is called the sparkle button and it sits in the top right of your screen allowing users to essentially temporarily disable “Top Tweets” and enjoy a pure reverse chronological Twitter feed. Though the company sees a lot of utility in algorithmic feeds, they also acknowledge that recency is critical to the ethos of Twitter and that in certain instances, like a sporting event or breaking news situation, there’s a lot of value in seeing what’s new immediately.
You don’t necessarily get to set your preference in stone, though.
In what is likely to be a controversial move, “Top Tweets” is enabled by default and it seems that you will have to re-enable the feature periodically. Twitter says it’s experimenting with how often that is, though it will at least remember your preference for the entirety of your session. So, if you check your mentions and tap on the Home tab you won’t return to “Top Tweets” if you had previously been browsing the reverse-chronological feed.
Though the company has said today’s rollout won’t be affecting the volume or frequency of “Top Tweets” postings, it’s clear that this feature launch gives the company a much longer leash to experiment with changing up the core timeline, and in general offers the company a proper means to get reverse-chronological hold-outs people to gradually adapt the algorithmic feed without feeling quite as forced to do so.
It would have been great if Twitter introduced this months ago, for all the philosophical shifts that the algorithmic timeline signaled, the most annoying part of the change was how users were given mixed messages about being able to choose whether they could keep the old timeline.
Today’s move is likely to make most users happy, though. Unburying important toggles from the depths of settings is always welcome, and communicating major changes is especially important to a company like Twitter that doesn’t often change up its core product dramatically.
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Google AI Princeton: Current and Future Research
Google has long partnered with academia to advance research, collaborating with universities all over the world on joint research projects which result in novel developments in Computer Science, Engineering, and related fields. Today we announce the latest of these academic partnerships in the form of a new lab, across the street from Princeton University’s historic Nassau Hall, opening early next year. By fostering closer collaborations with faculty and students at Princeton, the lab aims to broaden research in multiple facets of machine learning, focusing its initial research efforts on optimization methods for large-scale machine learning, control theory and reinforcement learning. Below we give a brief overview of the research progress thus far.
Large-Scale Optimization
Imagine you have gone for a mountain hike and have run out of water. You need to get to a lake. How can you do so most efficiently? This is a matter of optimizing your route, and the mathematical analogue of this is the gradient descent method. You therefore move in the direction of steepest descent until you find the nearest lake at the bottom of your path. In the language of optimization, the location of the lake is referred to as a (local) minimum. The trajectory of gradient descent resembles the path, shown below, a thirsty yet avid hiker would take in order to get down to a lake as fast as she can.
This simplified diagonal preconditioning imposes only a marginal additional cost to gradient descent. However, oversimplification has its own downside: we are no longer able to rotate our space. Going back to our hiker, if the deep-and-narrow canyon runs from southeast to northwest, she can no longer take large westward leaps. Had we provided her with a “rigged” compass in which the north pole is in the northwest, she could have followed her descent procedure as before. In high dimensions, the analog of compass rigging is full-matrix preconditioning. We thus asked ourselves whether we could devise a preconditioning method that is computationally efficient while allowing for the equivalent of coordinate rotations.
At Google AI Princeton, we developed a new method for full-matrix adaptive preconditioning at roughly the same computational cost as the commonly-used diagonal restriction. Details can be found in the paper, but the key idea behind the method is depicted below. Instead of using a full matrix, we replace the preconditioning matrix by a product of three matrices: a tall & thin matrix, a (small) square matrix, and a short & fat matrix. The vast amount of computation is performed using the smaller matrix. If we have d parameters, instead of a single large d × d matrix, the matrices maintained by GGT (shorthand for the operation Gradient GradientT), the proposed method, are of sizes d × k, k × k, k × d respectively.
For reasonable choices of k, which can be thought of as the “window size” of the algorithm, the computational bottleneck has been mitigated from a single large matrix, to that of a much smaller kkmatrix. In our implementation we typically choose k to be, say, 50, and maintaining the smaller square matrix is significantly less expensive while yielding good empirical performance. When compared to other adaptive methods on standard deep learning tasks, GGT is competitive with AdaGrad and Adam.
Spectral Filtering for Control and Reinforcement Learning
Another broad mission of Google’s research group in Princeton is to develop principled building blocks for decision-making systems. In particular, the group strives to leverage provable guarantees from the field of online learning, which studies the robust (worst-case) guarantees of decision-making algorithms under uncertainty. An online algorithm is said to attain a no-regret guarantee if it learns to make decisions as well as the best "offline" decision in hindsight. Ideas from this field have already enabled many innovations within theoretical computer science, and provide a mathematically elegant framework to study a widely-used technique called boosting. We envision using ideas from online learning to broaden the toolkit of modern reinforcement learning.
With that goal in mind, and in collaboration with researchers and students at Princeton, we developed the algorithmic technique of spectral filtering for estimation and control of linear dynamical systems (see several recent publications). In this setting, noisy observations (e.g., location sensor measurements) are being streamed from an unknown source. The source of the signal is a system whose state evolves over time following a set of linear equations (e.g. Newton's laws). To forecast future signals (prediction), or to perform actions which bring the system to a desired state (control), the usual approach starts with learning the model explicitly (a task termed system identification), which is often slow and inaccurate.
Spectral filtering circumvents the need to model the dynamics explicitly, by reformulating prediction and control as convex programs, enabling provable no-regret guarantees. A major component of the technique is that of a new signal processing transformation. The idea is to summarize the long history of past input signals through convolution with a tailored bank of filters, and then use this representation to predict the dynamical system’s future outputs. Each filter compresses the input signal into a single real number, by taking a weighted combination of the previous inputs.
 |
| A set of filters depicted in a plot of filter amplitude versus time. With our technique of spectral filtering, multiple filters are used to predict the state of a linear dynamical system at any given time. Each filter is a set of weights used to summarize past observations, such that combining them in a weighted fashion, over time allows us to accurately predict the system. |
Looking Forward
We are excited about the progress we have made thus far in partnership with Princeton’s faculty and students, and we look forward to the official opening of the lab in the coming weeks. It has long been Google’s view that both industry and academia benefit significantly from an open research culture, and we look forward to our continued close collaboration.
Acknowledgments
The research and results discussed in this post would not have been possible without contributions from the following researchers: Naman Agarwal, Brian Bullins, Xinyi Chen, Udaya Ghai, Tomer Koren, Karan Singh, Cyril Zhang, Yi Zhang, and visiting professor Sham Kakade. Since joining Google earlier this year, the research team has been working remotely from both the Google NYC office as well as the Princeton University campus, and they look forward to moving into the new Google space across from the Princeton campus in the weeks to come.
18 December 2018
As NAACP kicks off boycott, Facebook says content moderation, infrastructure changes are coming in 2019
Facebook’s ongoing efforts to repair its image as a greedy, neglectful accessory to the spread of misinformation and other nefarious practices has taken a turn to civil rights and specifically how it serves non-white users, which proportionately account for the social network’s most active members.
Today — the first day of #LogOutFacebook, a week-long boycott of the service led by the NAACP — Facebook published an update to its ongoing civil rights audit, where it laid out some goals for the year ahead. In 2019, it said it plans to address censorship and discrimination in its content moderation; and it’s also working on a “Civil Rights Accountability Infrastructure,” in which civil rights are put front and center in the development of new products and policies.
“We take this incredibly seriously, as demonstrated by the investments we’ve made in safety and security,” noted COO Sheryl Sandberg in a blog post introducing the update to the audit. “We know we need to do more.”
But as has been the case with Facebook on a number of occasions in recent times, its contrition appears too little too late.
The NAACP — which has called on like-minded groups and individuals to join it in its campaign — has built up a strong list of grievances against the social network, which now has around 2 billion users. They range from ongoing issues around a lack of diversity in its workforce and the fact that the company has not taken strong-enough measures to safeguard users’ privacy in breaches, through to more recent developments. Just yesterday, two reports commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Russia-backed organizations specifically targeted African Americans on the Facebook platform in their misinformation campaigns.
“Facebook’s engagement with partisan firms, its targeting of political opponents, the spread of misinformation and the utilization of Facebook for propaganda promoting disingenuous portrayals of the African American community is reprehensible,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO, in a statement.
As part of the announcement of the boycott, the NAACP also said that it had returned a donation Facebook had made to its organization.
Facebook itself didn’t make specific reference to the NAACP statements, nor to the boycott, in its audit update. Led by Laura Murphy, who had previously worked for the ACLU, the audit — which kicked off in May of this year — provides a summary of the work she and her team have been doing for the last six months. It has included taking a bird’s-eye view of the state of the company today, and engagement with outside stakeholders and Facebook itself to assemble a list of priorities that need to be addressed.
There is, she writes, “no question that Facebook faces a number of serious civil rights challenges… To be clear, the civil right groups that are raising these concerns are pro-technology but firmly anti-bias; moreover, they are concerned about the impact of the platform on public discourse and the institutions that are the foundation of American democracy.”
The list of areas that have been identified to address is long and a reminder of how many shortcomings there are on the platform. As Murphy lays it out, these include voter suppression tactics; accountability infrastructure; content moderation; advertising targeting; diversity and inclusion among employees; taking out bias from AI and algorithms; privacy and transparency.
As we’ve seen over the last several months, the company has already started to take some steps ahead in areas like AI, transparency, advertising and trying to improve practices around elections and inclusion in its own ranks. But as you can see from recent reports, and this week’s boycott, there is still a long way for the social network to go.
Read Full Article
Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android, despite Europe’s antitrust action
Mobile licensing changes made by Google this fall, when it tweaked terms for OEMs wanting to license its Android smartphone platform on devices destined for the European market, don’t appear to be offering succour to search rivals — despite being triggered by an antitrust ruling intended to reset the competitive playing field.
The European Commission found the search giant guilty of anti-competitive practices related to its Android platform this summer, slapping the company with a $5BN fine.
The decision required Google cease practices judged to be illegally skewing the market and do so within 90 days.
It was the second such major EC antitrust finding against Google, after last year’s Google Shopping ruling, when the company was warned that having been found dominant in search it had a “special responsibility” to avoid breaching antitrust rules in any market it plays in.
Google disputes the Commission’s findings of competitive abuse in both cases, and has lodged legal appeals.
But the nature of competition law demands action in the meanwhile, given the threat of punitive penalties for any continued breach. So in October Google responded to the Commission’s Android ruling by updating its regional compatibility agreement to provide a route for OEMs to unbundle key services from the Android OS — rather than requiring its suite of Google apps be pre-loaded for devices to get the Play Store.
However it also incorporated licensing fees for some unbundled configurations (e.g. Android + Play Store). At the same time it said it would not charge any fee to include search or Chrome. And it said it was offering incentives for OEMs to place its eponymous, market dominating search engine (and/or browser) prominently on their devices — despite one of the behaviors the Commission judged illegal being payments Google had made to certain large manufacturers and mobile carriers to exclusively pre-install Google Search.
The Commission did not prescribe specific remedies for the anticompetitive behaviours it pegged to Android — saying it’s “Google’s sole responsibility to make sure that it changes its conduct in a way that brings the infringements to an effective end”.
Though it warned it would closely monitor the company’s conduct, noting that any finding of continued non-compliance would risk fresh fines — of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of Alphabet for each day of non-compliance.
The key word there is “effective” — in terms of what the Commission is watching for.
Meanwhile Google’s dominant position in search naturally makes it the smartphone consumer’s go-to choice — which in turn means there’s a natural incentive for device makers not to ditch Google as the search default. At least for mainstream devices.
But Google’s new European licensing terms for Android appear to be piling additional pressure on OEMs not to switch even for more experimental and/or regional device launches, according to privacy-focused search engine Qwant.
Pay to install
Its experience suggests Google’s initial ‘remedy’ — far from delivering an “effective end” to the competitive infringements the Commission found — is actively steering OEMs away from search alternatives and rival companies.
Qwant, a French startup, launched its non-tracking search offering back in 2013, and has been on a growth tear on its home turf in recent months — winning over high profile users in the public sector as concern has risen about Silicon Valley’s intrusive grip on user data.
The French National Assembly and the French Ministry of the Armed Forces Minister announced this fall they’d switch to Qwant instead of Google as their default.
Of course the startup is still a minnow compared to Google. But it’s growing: Qwant tracks queries rather than users (given it doesn’t track people), and it says it generated 2.6BN queries in 2016; which grew to 9BN last year; and is now on track to end this year with around 18BN queries.
“So if we think about it that means that last year we were three days of Google; this year six days of Google — not so bad!” says co-founder Eric Leandri.
“In France we have now more than 6% of the market,” he continues. “In Germany something like 2%. And we are still growing. We do growth of 20% by month for the last four months. The growth in our revenue is two digit too, by month.”
Earlier this year it had been hoping to make additional regional marketshare gains by securing a deal to be pre-loaded on Android smartphones destined for European markets. A spokesman tells us it has a framework agreement with Huawei. (The Chinese Android OEM is second only to Samsung in global marketshare terms, according to analysts.)
The Commission’s antitrust ruling opened the door to this possibility, given it banned Google from prohibiting OEMs from launching non-Google approved Android forks. So after the ruling things were looking good for Qwant, with the startup on the cusp of securing a device deal for a few European countries, as Leandri tells it.
He blames Google’s licensing changes for putting the kibosh on a launch they’d been expecting to be able to announce in November. Early that month the startup pinged us to trail forthcoming news — of “a major partnership that will allow us to accelerate in the smartphone market” — only to go silent.
A few weeks later it got in touch again to say it had had to postpone the announcement.
“We are very near to one or two deals to be by default or in the list of search engines in some Android cell phone made by a very large Asian manufacturer… Just for Europe, and just for some countries in Europe but we are talking about 10 million or 20 million of cell phones,” says Leandri now.
“And when we have won the bid against Google in October then Google start to say that in Europe you have to pay $40 for Android. So now if you install Qwant you have to pay $40 and if you install Google they give you some cash.”
“Before it was impossible to bid against Google because Google was blocking everything. Now you can — but now the solution of Google is you have to pay $40 if you don’t install Google by default with Chrome just on the bar. You know the bar that is fixed on Android. And this is again an abuse of their dominant position,” he adds.
“Because if I want, for example, 10 million smartphones, the guy has to pay $400M to Google. Do you really think they will pay $400M to Google just to install Qwant?”
Google’s rebuttal of the Commission’s antitrust finding for Android has focused on claims that its approach of free licensing combined with a bundle of Google services has generally enabled competition to thrive in the mobile app ecosystem, as well as claiming lower prices are a “classic hallmark… of robust competition”.
Yet Qwant’s experience offers a clear counterpoint, underlining how challenging it remains to try to compete with Google’s core search business when the same company also dominates the smartphone market and can just throw the levers of Android’s licensing terms to configure how much ‘appetite’ OEMs have for investing in alternative search defaults (given tiny hardware profit margins in the Android space).
After Qwant won over Huawei to building a device with its search engine in prime position, Leandri says it was Google’s changes to the licensing terms for Android that threw a spanner in the works.
“After that pressure then the manufacturer doesn’t know how to react now,” he says, confirming he believes there’s currently no chance for the device to be launched. Not without further changes to how Android operates in the market — i.e. further regulatory intervention.
“So we will work a lot with the European Commission to stop that,” he adds. “But again, again my question is why Google goes that way?”
We reached out to Google to ask about the fees it would charge an OEM wanting to launch an Android device with Google Play but without Google search as the default in Europe.
We also asked how charging a fee for Android if OEMs don’t also bundle Google services can help increase competition, per the Commission’s intention.
At the time of writing Google had not responded to our questions.
We also reached out to Huawei for comment and will update this story with any response.
Even if Qwant and Huawei get their way, and European buyers in a handful of countries are able to choose to buy an Android device with a little search localization as its differentiating out-of-the-box twist, Leandri isn’t under any illusions that a majority of consumers will still switch back to Google of their own accord — given its dominance of search.
He reckons those who’d stick with a non-Google search choice might be as low as a third or 40%.
But his point is that, as it stands, Qwant doesn’t even have the chance to try competing against the Google Goliath on its own terms. And he argues that’s simply not fair.
“Google has billions to make advertisement to ask people to switch, right. And they can even do advertisement on the Play Store for zero because they control the Play Store. Why they don’t come back to a normal market where we are all on the same line and they just compete with advertisement, with pushing their products, with a better proposition of value. It’s crazy, it’s crazy!” he says.
“They have 95% of the market, and on that market they expect that if they don’t have the search by default there then they don’t do money with the Play Store. This is bullshit. They do billions of euros with the app on the Play Store each year. With the 30% that they take on the apps. So this is not true. This is not true, sorry.
“So right now this is our goal and my main work actually is just to obtain the right to have a fair competition — a simple, fair competition.”
“I don’t want to dismantle Google. I don’t want Google to be fined 10BN. I don’t care. The only thing I want is to have the right to have a fair competition,” he adds.
We asked the European Commission to respond to Qwant’s experience, and for an update on its monitoring of Google’s compliance with the Android antitrust ruling.
A spokeswoman declined to comment on an individual case but we understand the Commission has been sending questionnaires to market players as part of its compliance monitoring.
It’s clear the regulator’s intention with the Android decision was to expand consumer choice by creating opportunities for competition that didn’t exist before — including for rival search and browser providers to be able to compete on the merits with Google when it comes to pre-loading their products on Android devices.
So if the Commission’s monitoring efforts confirm instances where competition is being blocked, as appears the case here with Qwant, further interventions will surely follow.
Leandri also points out that Google made much the same arguments vis-a-vis ‘fair competition’ more than a decade ago — when it called for the then computing incumbent, Microsoft, not to stand in the way of Internet upstarts by bundling MSN search into its Internet Explorer web browser.
“The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” said Marissa Mayer in 2006, then Google’s vice president for search products. “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.”
“I totally agree with what they say in 2006! Just exchange Microsoft for Google and that’s it!” he says now, adding: “We have to fight because there is not a lot of other way. But I stop fighting tomorrow as soon as I have a fair competition.
“I’m not waiting for the Commission to make the competition. Right now the percentage of growth that I have in France it’s not based on the Commission who has won or not. It’s based on our value proposition.”
Leandri is also president of the Open Internet Project, a European organization whose members lobby for regulatory action to rein in what they view as Google’s abusive dominance of digital markets, and which was also involved in the Google Shopping complaints — though he points out that in the Android case three of the five complainants are American.
“We are the only European. So the problem is not only for a small startup in Europe. Who, y’know, complained because ‘Google is so cool’. And we are so dumb. And so ridiculous. But the problem is for Oracle, it’s for the Fair Search. It’s not for kids.”
Read Full Article
Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android, despite Europe’s antitrust action
Mobile licensing changes made by Google this fall, when it tweaked terms for OEMs wanting to license its Android smartphone platform on devices destined for the European market, don’t appear to be offering succour to search rivals — despite being triggered by an antitrust ruling intended to reset the competitive playing field.
The European Commission found the search giant guilty of anti-competitive practices related to its Android platform this summer, slapping the company with a $5BN fine.
The decision required Google cease practices judged to be illegally skewing the market and do so within 90 days.
It was the second such major EC antitrust finding against Google, after last year’s Google Shopping ruling, when the company was warned that having been found dominant in search it had a “special responsibility” to avoid breaching antitrust rules in any market it plays in.
Google disputes the Commission’s findings of competitive abuse in both cases, and has lodged legal appeals.
But the nature of competition law demands action in the meanwhile, given the threat of punitive penalties for any continued breach. So in October Google responded to the Commission’s Android ruling by updating its regional compatibility agreement to provide a route for OEMs to unbundle key services from the Android OS — rather than requiring its suite of Google apps be pre-loaded for devices to get the Play Store.
However it also incorporated licensing fees for some unbundled configurations (e.g. Android + Play Store). At the same time it said it would not charge any fee to include search or Chrome. And it said it was offering incentives for OEMs to place its eponymous, market dominating search engine (and/or browser) prominently on their devices — despite one of the behaviors the Commission judged illegal being payments Google had made to certain large manufacturers and mobile carriers to exclusively pre-install Google Search.
The Commission did not prescribe specific remedies for the anticompetitive behaviours it pegged to Android — saying it’s “Google’s sole responsibility to make sure that it changes its conduct in a way that brings the infringements to an effective end”.
Though it warned it would closely monitor the company’s conduct, noting that any finding of continued non-compliance would risk fresh fines — of up to 5% of the average daily turnover of Alphabet for each day of non-compliance.
The key word there is “effective” — in terms of what the Commission is watching for.
Meanwhile Google’s dominant position in search naturally makes it the smartphone consumer’s go-to choice — which in turn means there’s a natural incentive for device makers not to ditch Google as the search default. At least for mainstream devices.
But Google’s new European licensing terms for Android appear to be piling additional pressure on OEMs not to switch even for more experimental and/or regional device launches, according to privacy-focused search engine Qwant.
Pay to install
Its experience suggests Google’s initial ‘remedy’ — far from delivering an “effective end” to the competitive infringements the Commission found — is actively steering OEMs away from search alternatives and rival companies.
Qwant, a French startup, launched its non-tracking search offering back in 2013, and has been on a growth tear on its home turf in recent months — winning over high profile users in the public sector as concern has risen about Silicon Valley’s intrusive grip on user data.
The French National Assembly and the French Ministry of the Armed Forces Minister announced this fall they’d switch to Qwant instead of Google as their default.
Of course the startup is still a minnow compared to Google. But it’s growing: Qwant tracks queries rather than users (given it doesn’t track people), and it says it generated 2.6BN queries in 2016; which grew to 9BN last year; and is now on track to end this year with around 18BN queries.
“So if we think about it that means that last year we were three days of Google; this year six days of Google — not so bad!” says co-founder Eric Leandri.
“In France we have now more than 6% of the market,” he continues. “In Germany something like 2%. And we are still growing. We do growth of 20% by month for the last four months. The growth in our revenue is two digit too, by month.”
Earlier this year it had been hoping to make additional regional marketshare gains by securing a deal to be pre-loaded on Android smartphones destined for European markets. A spokesman tells us it has a framework agreement with Huawei. (The Chinese Android OEM is second only to Samsung in global marketshare terms, according to analysts.)
The Commission’s antitrust ruling opened the door to this possibility, given it banned Google from prohibiting OEMs from launching non-Google approved Android forks. So after the ruling things were looking good for Qwant, with the startup on the cusp of securing a device deal for a few European countries, as Leandri tells it.
He blames Google’s licensing changes for putting the kibosh on a launch they’d been expecting to be able to announce in November. Early that month the startup pinged us to trail forthcoming news — of “a major partnership that will allow us to accelerate in the smartphone market” — only to go silent.
A few weeks later it got in touch again to say it had had to postpone the announcement.
“We are very near to one or two deals to be by default or in the list of search engines in some Android cell phone made by a very large Asian manufacturer… Just for Europe, and just for some countries in Europe but we are talking about 10 million or 20 million of cell phones,” says Leandri now.
“And when we have won the bid against Google in October then Google start to say that in Europe you have to pay $40 for Android. So now if you install Qwant you have to pay $40 and if you install Google they give you some cash.”
“Before it was impossible to bid against Google because Google was blocking everything. Now you can — but now the solution of Google is you have to pay $40 if you don’t install Google by default with Chrome just on the bar. You know the bar that is fixed on Android. And this is again an abuse of their dominant position,” he adds.
“Because if I want, for example, 10 million smartphones, the guy has to pay $400M to Google. Do you really think they will pay $400M to Google just to install Qwant?”
Google’s rebuttal of the Commission’s antitrust finding for Android has focused on claims that its approach of free licensing combined with a bundle of Google services has generally enabled competition to thrive in the mobile app ecosystem, as well as claiming lower prices are a “classic hallmark… of robust competition”.
Yet Qwant’s experience offers a clear counterpoint, underlining how challenging it remains to try to compete with Google’s core search business when the same company also dominates the smartphone market and can just throw the levers of Android’s licensing terms to configure how much ‘appetite’ OEMs have for investing in alternative search defaults (given tiny hardware profit margins in the Android space).
After Qwant won over Huawei to building a device with its search engine in prime position, Leandri says it was Google’s changes to the licensing terms for Android that threw a spanner in the works.
“After that pressure then the manufacturer doesn’t know how to react now,” he says, confirming he believes there’s currently no chance for the device to be launched. Not without further changes to how Android operates in the market — i.e. further regulatory intervention.
“So we will work a lot with the European Commission to stop that,” he adds. “But again, again my question is why Google goes that way?”
We reached out to Google to ask about the fees it would charge an OEM wanting to launch an Android device with Google Play but without Google search as the default in Europe.
We also asked how charging a fee for Android if OEMs don’t also bundle Google services can help increase competition, per the Commission’s intention.
At the time of writing Google had not responded to our questions.
We also reached out to Huawei for comment and will update this story with any response.
Even if Qwant and Huawei get their way, and European buyers in a handful of countries are able to choose to buy an Android device with a little search localization as its differentiating out-of-the-box twist, Leandri isn’t under any illusions that a majority of consumers will still switch back to Google of their own accord — given its dominance of search.
He reckons those who’d stick with a non-Google search choice might be as low as a third or 40%.
But his point is that, as it stands, Qwant doesn’t even have the chance to try competing against the Google Goliath on its own terms. And he argues that’s simply not fair.
“Google has billions to make advertisement to ask people to switch, right. And they can even do advertisement on the Play Store for zero because they control the Play Store. Why they don’t come back to a normal market where we are all on the same line and they just compete with advertisement, with pushing their products, with a better proposition of value. It’s crazy, it’s crazy!” he says.
“They have 95% of the market, and on that market they expect that if they don’t have the search by default there then they don’t do money with the Play Store. This is bullshit. They do billions of euros with the app on the Play Store each year. With the 30% that they take on the apps. So this is not true. This is not true, sorry.
“So right now this is our goal and my main work actually is just to obtain the right to have a fair competition — a simple, fair competition.”
“I don’t want to dismantle Google. I don’t want Google to be fined 10BN. I don’t care. The only thing I want is to have the right to have a fair competition,” he adds.
We asked the European Commission to respond to Qwant’s experience, and for an update on its monitoring of Google’s compliance with the Android antitrust ruling.
A spokeswoman declined to comment on an individual case but we understand the Commission has been sending questionnaires to market players as part of its compliance monitoring.
It’s clear the regulator’s intention with the Android decision was to expand consumer choice by creating opportunities for competition that didn’t exist before — including for rival search and browser providers to be able to compete on the merits with Google when it comes to pre-loading their products on Android devices.
So if the Commission’s monitoring efforts confirm instances where competition is being blocked, as appears the case here with Qwant, further interventions will surely follow.
Leandri also points out that Google made much the same arguments vis-a-vis ‘fair competition’ more than a decade ago — when it called for the then computing incumbent, Microsoft, not to stand in the way of Internet upstarts by bundling MSN search into its Internet Explorer web browser.
“The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” said Marissa Mayer in 2006, then Google’s vice president for search products. “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.”
“I totally agree with what they say in 2006! Just exchange Microsoft for Google and that’s it!” he says now, adding: “We have to fight because there is not a lot of other way. But I stop fighting tomorrow as soon as I have a fair competition.
“I’m not waiting for the Commission to make the competition. Right now the percentage of growth that I have in France it’s not based on the Commission who has won or not. It’s based on our value proposition.”
Leandri is also president of the Open Internet Project, a European organization whose members lobby for regulatory action to rein in what they view as Google’s abusive dominance of digital markets, and which was also involved in the Google Shopping complaints — though he points out that in the Android case three of the five complainants are American.
“We are the only European. So the problem is not only for a small startup in Europe. Who, y’know, complained because ‘Google is so cool’. And we are so dumb. And so ridiculous. But the problem is for Oracle, it’s for the Fair Search. It’s not for kids.”
Read Full Article
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