elproducto #36 👉 a weekly round-up of Tech and Product goodness
Facebook new video tab, Whatsapp business app, Altassian Slack-like chat, Oyster App, Redesigning Uber for business, 2017 startup fails & more.
Welcome to another week full of fresh ideas and innovation at elproducto.
đź“° Seen on the news
Facebook rolls out Watch to all US users; replaces the Video tab on desktop, mobile, and TV apps; highlights new uploads, trending items, what friends are watching, most talked about videos, more.
WhatsApp is testing a new business app for communicating with customers; provides verified profiles and messaging for SMBs; working on enterprise solutions, including notifications, delivery updates, etc.
Atlassian announces Stride, a team communications app; offers Slack-like features including video conferencing, audio calling, app integration; available free for unlimited users, or $3 per user for advanced features.
LinkedIn launches an ads program to let marketers reach its users across other apps and websites; LinkedIn Audience Network provides granular targeting with access to performance reports.
Lyft partners with autonomous vehicle tech company Drive.ai to launch an on-demand ride-share pilot using autonomous vehicles; the pair expects to launch soon in San Francisco; Lyft has similar partnerships with Waymo, GM and NuTonomy.
YouTube update for iOS enables live screen streaming; previously limited to Android; the company has also lowered the minimum subscriber count for mobile live streaming to 100.
SpaceX completes testing on all three first-stage cores for the Falcon Heavy rocket; the company plans to launch the rocket for the first time in November; consists of three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together; SpaceX plans to land all three on land for reuse.
A KFC in China is using Ant Financial’s facial recognition tech for payments; the Yum-owned restaurant is the first commercial application of Ant’s tech, which detects “liveliness” and requires a smile to fight fraud.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University develop a camera that can essentially see through a human body; can detect individual photons and measure how long light takes to pass through human tissue.
Samsung announces a bug bounty program offering up to $200k for severe vulnerabilities; the program covers 38 mobile devices that still receive updates including the Galaxy S6 and the Note 4; the firm will also pay bounties for flaws found in Bixby, Samsung Pay, and other services.
The BBC produces experimental interactive radio plays for Alexa and Google Home; listeners make decisions at key points in each story, changing the outcome; the first story, “The Inspection Chamber,” launches later this year.
Transport for London launches an iOS and Android app for Oyster travel card users; lets travellers check their balance and top up; also shows journey histories for the previous eight weeks.
đź“š Good reads
10 of the most-founded startups to fail in 2017. TechCrunch looks at some companies that shut down this year, despite having a promising future ahead not so long ago. Find out what happened to Jawbone or Yik Yak.
Things to keep in mind before building the Uber for x. Sam Madden looks at what it takes to build a successful on-demand service by focusing on two key elements: urgency and skill requirements.
Redesigning Uber for Business. Jeffrey Vanichsarn from Uber’s Product Design Team tells us his experience relaunching a product that can take Uber to a whole new level.
🎯Quote of the week
“Product leaders are increasingly the people responsible for connecting the dots between the executive vision and the practical work on the ground” — Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson & Nate Walkingshaw, Product Leadership
đź“® Get the latest in your inbox every week
elproducto is a curated selection of Tech&Product happenings within the last few days from a curious and frequently skeptical Product Manager’s perspective.
