Best Selling iPhone

Apple Inc’s iPhone XR has been the company’s best-

selling iPhone model every day since it went on sale

in mid-October, a company executive told Reuters on

Wednesday.

The iPhone XR, which costs $749, was announced

alongside two other models, the iPhone XS and XS Max,

which start at $999. The XR brings many key features of

those phones to a lower price point, and analysts widely

viewed it as Apple’s effort to bring facial recognition

unlocking and its newest processing chip to a wider set

of buyers.

But a string of negative forecasts from smartphone

suppliers in recent weeks has sparked concerns that the

model might not be performing as Apple had hoped.

Those reports, alongside investor anxiety over Apple’s

Nov. 1 disclosure it will no longer provide investors with

iPhone unit sales data, have contributed to a more than

20 percent drop from Apple’s peak share price in October.

LG Phone with Too Many Cameras

If the five cameras on LG's V40 ThinQ seemed like a

lot to you, how about 16? The Korean company may

be working on a smartphone camera with that many

lenses, according to a recently filed patent seen by

LetsGoDigital. Arranged in a 4x4 matrix, it's designed

to capture a scene from multiple perspectives in a single

shot. That will allow you to shoot 3D movies and manipulate

shots by, say, moving someone's head around or replacing

it completely.

In one example, LG shows how you'd be able to select the

best photo in a series, or create a single shot from multiple

angles. You could also rotate the head of your subject (or a

teddy bear, as shown below) with whatever angle makes

them look best.

In another example, you'd be able to draw around a

person's head with your finger. The system would use AI

to recognize them and search for any other photos. It could

then replace the head in the photo you just took with, for

instance, a more flattering shot.

According to the patent, the smartphone would let you use

the main camera to take selfies by equipping it with ... a mirror.

Yes, the same kind of "technology" used on much older flip

phones and compact cameras.

There's no indication yet that LG will ever release such a phone,

but it's obviously trying to stay on top of the technology. Much

like the megapixel race several years ago, smartphone makers

are trying to grab the interest of increasingly bored consumers

by adding more cameras, it appears. Samsung's Galaxy A9

has four at the back, and Nokia will soon release a model with

five. The way it's going, the entire back of your phone will soon

be riddled with lenses.

Lowe's To Dump Smart Home

Giant home improvement retailer Lowe's is giving up

on the smart home market. The company, which has

more than 2,000 locations, recently announced plans

to exit the home automation market and is seeking a

buyer for its Iris Smart Home business as part of a

“strategic reassessment.”

The announcement is part of multiple other maneuvers

by Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) that include closing its Orchard

Supply Hardware business, selling its Alacrity Renovation

Service and all its locations in Mexico, and shutting more

than 50 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Speaking to investors, president and CEO Marvin Ellison,

noted, “Our top priority this quarter was taking the necessary

steps to build a sustainable foundation to position Lowe’s

long-term success, by exiting underperforming stores of

non-core businesses. This will allow us to intensify our

focus on our core retail business.”

InBev Marketing

Most of us know O’Doul’s as that weird beer in the corner

of the bodega cooler. Released in 1990 as a nonalcoholic

alternative for people who wanted beer without the booze,

it’s since become something of a cultural punching bag.

But many of us would like to have the social experience of

drinking without actually drinking–suggesting that part of

O’Doul’s bad rap might be its green-and-gold branding,

which portrays it as a faux-Irish lager rather than embracing

its role as a beer alternative.

In anticipation of “Blackout Wednesday,” as the Wednesday

before Thanksgiving when many college students come home

and party is known, the Anheuser-Busch corporate social

responsibility department has developed a potentially brilliant

marketing play. In select bars across Manhattan, they’ll be

experimenting with a new, limited-edition O’Doul’s can design

by the celebrated graphic designer Mr. Kiji.

Instead of green and gold, Kiji reimagined the can with quirky

geometric patterns and retro pastels. The typography looks

more like something out of a zine than a label for a beer can;

the whole design is pure Instagram bait.

“I came into this role a few months ago when we were looking

across our portfolio. We have over 100 brands . . . and you can

imagine we don’t give the same priority to all those brands,

when we have Budweiser, Bud Light, and Goose Island,” says

Adam Warrington, vice president of corporate social responsibility

at Anheuser-Busch. “But then we have O’Doul’s. At 28 years old,

there’s a a level of equity in the brand, but it’s not a new brand.

It’s been there for a while and it’s been untouched for a couple

decades.”

Happy Cyber-Monday

Happy Cyber-Monday!

In other news:

Apple has reportedly acquired Silk Labs, a little-known

startup which focused on building on-device machine

learning software.

The purchase, which took place earlier this year according to

The Information, would be a natural fit for Apple’s privacy-

centric approach to AI. After an unsuccessful foray into the

smart home, Silk Labs developed on-device machine learning

services. This means processing data without sending it to the

cloud — a method that Apple has also preferred.

Silk Labs itself is not a familiar name in tech. The company

was cofounded by former Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal and

launched only one product: an “intelligent camera and hub

for your smart home” name Sense. The hub was stylish

and well-designed, and intended to connect together smart

home products including thermostats, speakers, and cameras.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our offices will be closed until Cyber Monday. 

Have a great Thanksgiving and a profitable Black Friday!!

Skype on Alexa

Microsoft announced in September that Skype calling

would come to devices with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant

by the end of this year, and it’s finally made good on that

Promise.

Amazon today confirmed to The Verge that starting this

week, Alexa users will be able to make outgoing Skype

voice and video calls, accept incoming calls, and make

calls to domestic and international numbers via Skype’s

eponymous SkypeOut service. Saying something like

“Alexa, call John on Skype” or “Alexa, call 217-804-7734

on Skype” will place a call, while answering an incoming

call is as easy as responding “Alexa, answer.”

Smart Speaker Shipments

Analyst firm Canalys says that global smart speaker

shipments grew 137 percent year over year in the third

quarter, reaching 19.7 million units. That was up from

less than half that figure (8.3 million) a year ago.

Roughly 75 million devices by year-end. The firm has

projected 75 million devices “for the whole of 2018.” It’s

not entirely clear whether this is shipments or an estimate

of the installed base of smart speaker owners. Previously,

Canalys projected global smart speaker ownership would

reach 100 million by the end of the year — so it’s likely a

downward revision of that earlier estimate.

Canalys also said that Amazon had reclaimed the top

position after Google had overtaken it for the previous

two quarters.

“Riding on the success of its Prime Day,” the report said,

“Amazon shipped 6.3 million Echo smart speakers in Q3,

reclaiming the top spot after two quarters of playing second

fiddle to Google. This quarter, Google shipped 5.9 million

units, putting it just behind Amazon.”

Amazon has 75 percent of the market. According to Canalys,

Amazon now has a nearly 75 percent market share to

Google’s almost 25, with Chinese companies filling the

remaining less than 1 percent. The world’s three largest

markets for smart speakers are the U.S., China and the UK,

in that order.

It should be noted that there have been meaningful differences

in some of the analyst firms’ estimates of market size and market

share in the past. One recent illustration of that is Consumer

Intelligence Research Partners’ (CIRP) assertion that U.S. smart

speaker growth has started to level off. Some of these differences

may be due to methodology; Canalys tracks global device

shipments, CIRP is using U.S. consumer sampling.

Google Night Sight

Two years ago, Google’s release of the first Pixel

smartphone radically raised the bar for the image

quality we could expect from mobile cameras. Today,

even as everyone else struggles to catch up, Google

is extending its lead with the introduction of an equally

revolutionary new camera. It’s called Night Sight, and

it effectively lets your phone camera see in the dark.

Only it doesn’t require any additional hardware or cost:

Night Sight is a new camera mode for Pixel phones.

By now, you may have seen my testing with a pre-

release version of Night Sight that was uncovered by

the Android enthusiast community. The things that beta

software could do were truly unprecedented and awe-

inspiring, and the proper Night Sight release that Google

is serving up to all Pixel models today keeps that high

quality while providing an easier way to access the mode.

This week, I spoke with Google’s Yael Pritch, lead

researcher on Night Sight, about how the company built

its new night mode and the constant improvements it is

Implementing.

Night Sight is momentous because it’s a software change

that delivers a leap in performance that previously only new

hardware could bring.

Xbox One - Almost a PC

After years of unfulfilled promises and a few weeks of

build-up, the Xbox One family finally supports keyboards

and mice. Alright, so it's still a feature reserved for

members of the beta-esque Xbox Insider Program and

few games actually work with the different control scheme,

but it's here nevertheless. Keyboards, mice and consoles

aren't an abnormal pairing. I remember playing Unreal

Tournament on the Dreamcast with keys and clicks, and the

PS4 has supported the alternative peripherals for years, even

if developers have largely ignored them. It's a slightly bigger

deal on Xbox One, though. After all, it technically runs Windows

10, the OS of choice for PC gamers, albeit with the clunky Xbox

UI on top. The line between console and computer, then,

becomes ever blurrier.

In the immediate future, the impact of keyboard and mouse

support on Xbox One is negligible. Games that work with the

control option on day one or within the next few weeks include

Bomber Crew, Children of Morta, Deep Rock Galactic, Minion

Master, Moonlighter, Strange Brigade, Vigor, War Thunder,

Warface, Warframe, Wargroove, Warhammer: Vermintide 2and

X-Morph Defense. I know little to nothing about any of these titles.

DayZ on the other hand, I am familiar with, but that's been a

dead game for a while now.

Adapters that trick the Xbox One into accepting keyboard and

mouse inputs have existed since the console launched, but

official support is something different. There's going to be a

special Designed for Xbox program for approved peripherals

that include an Xbox home button, for instance -- the first product

of which is likely to come from well-known gamer brand Razer

early next year. More importantly, developers will have to actually

consider the control scheme when creating or updating games,

rather than simply translating inputs into pad-speak as adapters do.