Accessibility’s nextgen breakthroughs will be literally in your head

Jim Fruchterman Contributor

Jim Fruchterman is the founder and chief executive of Benetech, a nonprofit developer of technology for social good.

More posts by this contributor

• A $6 trillion wake up call for the tech industry

Predicting the future of technology for people with visual impairments is easier than you might think. In 2003, I wrote an article entitled “In the Palm of Your Hand” for the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness from the American Foundation for the Blind. The arrival of the iPhone was still four years away, but I was able to confidently predict the center of assistive technology shifting from the desktop PC to the smart phone. 

“A cell phone costing less than $100,” I wrote, “will be able to see for the person who can’t see, read for the person who can’t read, speak for the person who can’t speak, remember for the person who can’t remember, and guide the person who is lost.” Looking at the tech trends at the time, that transition was as inevitable as it might have seemed far-fetched.

We are at a similar point now, which is why I am excited to play a part of Sight Tech Global, a virtual event Dec. 2-3 that is convening the top technologists to discuss how AI and related technologies will usher in a new era of remarkable advances for accessibility and assistive tech, in particular for people who are blind or visually impaired.

To get to the future, let me turn to the past. I was walking around the German city of Speyer in the 1990s with pioneering blind assistive tech entrepreneur Joachim Frank. Joachim took me on a flight of fancy about what he really wanted from assistive technology, as opposed to what was then possible. He quickly highlighted three stories of how advanced tech could help him as he was walking down the street with me. 

• As I walk down the street, and walk by a supermarket, I do not want it to read all of the signs in the window. However, if one of the signs notes that kasseler kipchen (smoked porkchops, his favorite) are on sale, and the price is particularly good, I would like that whispered in my ear.
• And then, as a young woman approaches me walking in the opposite direction, I’d like to know if she’s wearing a wedding ring.
• Finally, I would like to know that someone has been following me for the last two blocks, that he is a known mugger, and that if I quicken my walking speed, go fifty meters ahead, turn right, and go another seventy meters, I will arrive at a police substation! 

Joachim blew my mind. In one short walk, he outlined a far bolder vision of what tech could do for him, without bogging down in the details. He wanted help with saving money, meeting new friends and keeping himself safe. He wanted abilities which not only equaled what people with normal vision had, but exceeded them. Above all, he wanted tools which knew him and his desires and needs. 

We are nearing the point where we can build Joachim’s dreams.  It won’t matter if the assistant whispers in your ear, or uses a direct neural implant to communicate. We will probably see both. But, the nexus of tech will move inside your head, and become a powerful instrument for equality of access. A new tech stack with perception as a service. Counter-measures to outsmart algorithmic discrimination. Tech personalization. Affordability. 

That experience will be built on an ever more application rich and readily available technology stack in the cloud. As all that gets cheaper and cheaper to access, product designers can create and experiment faster than ever. At first, it will be expensive, but not for long as adoption – probably by far more than simply disabled people – drives down price. I started my career in tech for the blind by introducing a reading machine that was a big deal because it halved the price of that technology to $5,000. Today even better OCR is a free app on any smartphone.

We could dive into more details of how we build Joachim’s dreams and meet the needs of millions of others of individuals with vision disabilities. But it will be far more interesting to explore with the world’s top experts at Sight Tech Global on Dec. 2-3 how those tech tools will become enabled In Your Head!

Registration is free and open to all. 

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Venmo launches its first credit card, offering up to 3% cash back, personalized rewards

Last October, Venmo announced it would launch its first credit card sometime in 2020. Today, the PayPal-owned company is making good on those promises with the debut of the Venmo Credit Card, initially rolling out to select customers. The Visa card offers 3% cash back on eligible purchases, personalized rewards and tools to track and manage finances. However, what makes the card potentially appealing to Venmo’s younger user base is how the card is directly integrated into the Venmo mobile app.

Cardholders will be able to track their spending in real time, organized by category, plus split or share purchases, view their cash back status, make payments and manage their card directly in the Venmo mobile app. They can also opt in to receive real-time alerts when purchases and payments are made, much like other credit card and banking apps allow for today. And they can receive alerts when cash back is applied to their account.

Instead of offering a certain percentage in cash back rewards to all Venmo users by category, for example, or as Apple Card does by vendor (at its top tier), the new Venmo Card rewards system will be personalized.

Venmo to launch its first credit card in 2020

Users can earn rewards from eight spending categories: Grocery, Bills & Utilities, Health & Beauty, Gas, Entertainment, Dining & Nightlife, Transportation and Travel. Users will earn 3% back on their top spending category, 2% from the second highest category, then 1% on all other purchases, the company says.

That’s a competitive offering compared with other cash back cards, given that the Venmo Card doesn’t include an annual fee. However, the card does charge other typical fees — like for cash advances, late and returned payments and interest. Currently, the APR ranges from 15.25% to 24.24%, based on the account holder’s creditworthiness.

While Venmo doesn’t incentivize touchless purchases, as Apple Card does by paying out a higher cashback percentage for Apple Pay transactions, Venmo’s card does come equipped with an RFID chip for tap to pay transactions at point-of-sale. This is not entirely contactless, but requires less contact than inserting the card into a chip reader, which can often require the user to hold the terminal steady with their other hand so it doesn’t swivel.

The new card also allows users to begin shopping virtually before their card arrives in the mail. And if the card becomes lost or stolen, it can be instantly disabled from within the Venmo app. Through Visa, the card includes Visa Traditional Credit Card benefits, as well as travel and lifestyle perks for Visa Signature cardholders.

Image Credits: Venmo

Given that personalized cards are in demand among millennial users, Venmo Cards are offered in five different colors and come emblazoned with the user’s own Venmo QR code on the front, making each card unique. This allows users to scan a friend’s card with the Venmo app when they want to send a payment or split a purchase.

Venmo already offers a Mastercard-branded debit card for its users — an offering it launched to target is millennial customer base, who tend to avoid credit cards as they’re worried about becoming trapped in the vicious credit-and-debt cycle. However, as many millennials are now finally starting to marry and buy their first homes, they’re coming to realize that establishing credit history matters. But they may still shy away from big banks, preferring alternative credit products, like credit cards that work like debit or perhaps Venmo’s Card, as it’s tied to a money management app they already use and rely on.

Zero raises $20 million from NEA and others for a credit card that works like debit

Venmo in Q2 said it had more than 60 million active accounts using its payments app — meaning those accounts that had completed a transaction within a 12-month timespan. It declined to say how many have since adopted its debit card to date. The company also reported $37 billion in Venmo payment volume in the most recent quarter. That means Venmo sports a large and active user base that it can upsell the new card to from within its free, peer-to-peer payments app, instead of only relying on external marketing.

As earlier reported, the Venmo Card is issued by Synchrony Bank, which is today known for powering a number of store cards, including those from Amazon, eBay, JCPenney, TJX, Stein Mart, American Eagle, Gap, Old Navy, Rooms to Go, Lowe’s and many others — around 100 cards, in total. The company has financed more than $149 billion in sales and has 75.5 million active accounts, according to its website.

At launch, Venmo is making the new card available to select customers via the Venmo mobile app. It says the card will be available to all in the U.S. in the months ahead.

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Air quality monitoring service Airly raises $2 million as fires, pollution force consumers to take note

As smoke from fires chokes the skies in the western U.S. and pollution chokes much of the world, air quality has become yet another issue for civilization to address.

Industrialization and natural disasters wrought by climate change are spewing more toxic matter into the air, and governments around the world are racing to monitor what the combination of catastrophes and economic growth could mean for their citizens.

The ability to get an accurate measurement of the air quality in their home city of Krakow, Poland is what drove the team of engineers that launched Airly to start their business.

Founded by three engineering students, Michal Misiek, Wiktor Warchalowski and Aleksander Konior, the company combines sensing technologies and software to measure particulate matter and emissions like NOx, SOx, methane and carbon monoxide in the air.

“We are using software and calibration algorithms to provide the best data,” said Warchalowski, who serves as the company’s chief executive officer. The company is more than just collecting air quality. The three engineers have also developed an algorithm that they say can accurately predict air quality for up to 24 hours based on the data they gather.

The current market for air quality assessment tools stands at roughly $4 billion today and will reach $6.5 billion by 2025. Already, Airly’s technology is being used by around 400 cities across Europe and Asia by several universities and corporations, including Philips, PwC, Motorola, Aviva, Veolia and Skanska. The company has also released an API so media, technology and finance companies can access live air quality data. There’s also an app for consumers who want to get a sense of the air out there.

Airparif, the French-based air quality assessment organization, awarded the company an honor for being the most accurate air quality device it had seen.

The company initially started because Warchalowski and his friends were training for a marathon and wanted to see when would be the best time to run so they wouldn’t be exposed to pollution. “When I wanted to run at 5PM and the data was from 2PM it was not up to date,” he said.

More than 2 million people are now using the company’s app. “There are more people like me that need that data,” Warchalowski said.

Aclima and Google release a new air quality data set for researchers to investigate California pollution

Airly makes money by selling its device, which is roughly the size of an iPhone, to consumers and communities, and by charging for access to its API. The device costs $300 and API access starts at $1,000, according to Warchalowski.

With revenue in hand and the imprimatur of leading air quality monitoring organizations, its little wonder that Airly was able to attract venture backing from Sir Richard Branson’s and Sir Ronald Cohen’s families; Pipedrive co-founder Martin Tajur; Cherry Ventures partner and former Spotify CMO Sophia Bendz; former Gojek CMO Piotr Jakubowski; and Henkel board member Konstantin von Unger, in a $2 million round led by the newly formed investment firm Giant Ventures.

“By building the leading source of air quality data globally, Airly is creating enormous social and economic value,” said Cameron McLain, a managing partner and co-founder of Giant Ventures.

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Google to pay out $1B to publishers to license content for new Google News Showcase

Google has long had a frenemy position with regards to the world of news: It can direct a lot of traffic to online publishers, but that’s only if people bother to click on links after getting the gist of the story from Google itself (and that’s before considering Google’s AMP approach on mobile that keeps users on Google URLs after they click). Publications built around advertising have felt beholden to the search and ad giant, leading those that have survived over the years to try to forge alternative revenue models around paid content, events and more to offset that dependency.

Now Google is offering another, complementary, option to these publishers, or at least some of them.

Today the company unveiled its latest effort to claw back more credibility in the news publishing world, launching the Google News Showcase. Sundar Pichai, CEO of the search giant, said in a blog post that it would collectively pay some $1 billion to news publishers in licensing fees “to create and curate high-quality content” for new story panels that will appear on Google News. Initially, these will appear on Android devices and eventually also on Google News on iOS.

The new initiative is going live today, after it was initially unveiled by Google in broad strokes earlier this summer.

Google will start paying publishers to provide content for a ‘new news experience’

Google News Showcase is rolling out first in Germany and Brazil before expanding to other markets, according to Pichai. The company has already inked deals with 200 publications in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The first publications to launch will be Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Folha de S.Paulo,Band, Infobae, El Litoral, GZH, WAZ and SooToday. India, Belgium and the Netherlands will be next on the list for expansion after the other countries go live, Pichai said.

As you can see here, Google News Showcase seems primarily to be focused on how news is consumed on mobile devices rather than desktop computers.

Like Apple with its efforts around Apple News, as a major mobile platform operator Google has worked on a number of ways to play nice with publishers and the news publishing industry over the years, some on its own steam and some in response to pressure from outside.

They have included funding local news research initiatives; its $300 million news initiative that includes providing grants to journalists and journals, as well as research; emergency grants to publications in hot water; and building tools to help journalists do their work.

Picking Germany as one of the first markets to roll this out is notable, given that publishers in the country were involved in a years-long lawsuit over copyright fees related to how their content was repurposed in Google.

Google updates its analytics tools for newsrooms

Google ultimately won that case in court, but arguably, it didn’t win in the court of public opinion. Given that Google continues to face a lot of antitrust scrutiny in Europe and elsewhere, it’s important that it works (or at least appear to work!) on rehabilitating its image as too-powerful and uninterested in the fate of institutions that are central to how democratic society works — like the free press.

As Pichai notes, this latest effort is different from what Google has built before because it’s based on publishers doing the curating and creating themselves.

Google is infamous for starting a lot of projects, rolling them out and then abandoning them when they fail to get market traction. With that understanding, and knowing that it’s one of the biggest companies in the world (not just in tech) it has in theory committed to the Showcase for three years, but Pichai said the plan is for it to “extend beyond the initial three years,” with the company “focused on contributing to the overall sustainability of our news partners around the world.”

It’s not clear how much money individual publishers will make out of this initiative, nor how or if it could be used to drive business models that don’t cut Google in on the action. The latter has been a prime focus for many publishers for the last several years. At best, similar to Apple News, it could help publishers hedge their bets or even bolster them (as in the case of paywalls and driving people to using them), rather than cannibalize those other efforts. Google, at the least, seems aware of the stakes and seems to argue that it’s not the only reason publishers are feeling the heat.

“The business model for newspapers—based on ads and subscription revenue—has been evolving for more than a century as audiences have turned to other sources for news, including radio, television and later, the proliferation of cable television and satellite radio,” wrote Pichai. “The internet has been the latest shift, and it certainly won’t be the last. Alongside other companies, governments and civic societies, we want to play our part by helping journalism in the 21st century not just survive, but thrive.”

Google unveils its $300M News Initiative

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Google to pay out $1B to publishers to license content for new Google News Showcase

Google has long had a frenemy position with regards to the world of news: It can direct a lot of traffic to online publishers, but that’s only if people bother to click on links after getting the gist of the story from Google itself (and that’s before considering Google’s AMP approach on mobile that keeps users on Google URLs after they click). Publications built around advertising have felt beholden to the search and ad giant, leading those that have survived over the years to try to forge alternative revenue models around paid content, events and more to offset that dependency.

Now Google is offering another, complementary, option to these publishers, or at least some of them.

Today the company unveiled its latest effort to claw back more credibility in the news publishing world, launching the Google News Showcase. Sundar Pichai, CEO of the search giant, said in a blog post that it would collectively pay some $1 billion to news publishers in licensing fees “to create and curate high-quality content” for new story panels that will appear on Google News. Initially, these will appear on Android devices and eventually also on Google News on iOS.

The new initiative is going live today, after it was initially unveiled by Google in broad strokes earlier this summer.

Google will start paying publishers to provide content for a ‘new news experience’

Google News Showcase is rolling out first in Germany and Brazil before expanding to other markets, according to Pichai. The company has already inked deals with 200 publications in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The first publications to launch will be Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Folha de S.Paulo,Band, Infobae, El Litoral, GZH, WAZ and SooToday. India, Belgium and the Netherlands will be next on the list for expansion after the other countries go live, Pichai said.

As you can see here, Google News Showcase seems primarily to be focused on how news is consumed on mobile devices rather than desktop computers.

Like Apple with its efforts around Apple News, as a major mobile platform operator Google has worked on a number of ways to play nice with publishers and the news publishing industry over the years, some on its own steam and some in response to pressure from outside.

They have included funding local news research initiatives; its $300 million news initiative that includes providing grants to journalists and journals, as well as research; emergency grants to publications in hot water; and building tools to help journalists do their work.

Picking Germany as one of the first markets to roll this out is notable, given that publishers in the country were involved in a years-long lawsuit over copyright fees related to how their content was repurposed in Google.

Google updates its analytics tools for newsrooms

Google ultimately won that case in court, but arguably, it didn’t win in the court of public opinion. Given that Google continues to face a lot of antitrust scrutiny in Europe and elsewhere, it’s important that it works (or at least appear to work!) on rehabilitating its image as too-powerful and uninterested in the fate of institutions that are central to how democratic society works — like the free press.

As Pichai notes, this latest effort is different from what Google has built before because it’s based on publishers doing the curating and creating themselves.

Google is infamous for starting a lot of projects, rolling them out and then abandoning them when they fail to get market traction. With that understanding, and knowing that it’s one of the biggest companies in the world (not just in tech) it has in theory committed to the Showcase for three years, but Pichai said the plan is for it to “extend beyond the initial three years,” with the company “focused on contributing to the overall sustainability of our news partners around the world.”

It’s not clear how much money individual publishers will make out of this initiative, nor how or if it could be used to drive business models that don’t cut Google in on the action. The latter has been a prime focus for many publishers for the last several years. At best, similar to Apple News, it could help publishers hedge their bets or even bolster them (as in the case of paywalls and driving people to using them), rather than cannibalize those other efforts. Google, at the least, seems aware of the stakes and seems to argue that it’s not the only reason publishers are feeling the heat.

“The business model for newspapers—based on ads and subscription revenue—has been evolving for more than a century as audiences have turned to other sources for news, including radio, television and later, the proliferation of cable television and satellite radio,” wrote Pichai. “The internet has been the latest shift, and it certainly won’t be the last. Alongside other companies, governments and civic societies, we want to play our part by helping journalism in the 21st century not just survive, but thrive.”

Google unveils its $300M News Initiative

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Google wakes up from its VR daydream

Daydream, Google’s mobile-focused virtual reality platform is losing official support from Google, Android Police reports. The company confirmed that it will no longer be updating the Daydream software, with the publication noting that “Daydream may not even work on Android 11” as a result of this.

This isn’t surprising to anyone who has been tracking the company’s moves in the space. After aggressive product rollouts in 2016 and 2017, Google quickly abandoned its VR efforts which, much like the Samsung Gear VR, allowed users to drop a compatible phone into a headset holster and use the phone’s display and compute to power VR experiences. After Apple’s announcement of ARKit, the company did a hard pivot away from VR, turning its specialty AR platform Tango into ARCore, an AR developer platform that has also not seen very much attention from Google in recent months.

Google bowing out of official support from Daydream comes after years without product updates to their own View headset and very little investment in their content ecosystem which wrecked the chances of Lenovo’s third-party effort the standalone Mirage Solo.

What went wrong? Once it became clear that Daydream wasn’t going to be an easy win, they kind of just abandoned the effort. Google’s hardware business is already peanuts to their search and ads business so it probably wasn’t clear what the point was, but virtual reality also quickly went from being the “it” technology to work on to clearly being a labor of love for a select few. Google determined it wasn’t the effort while Facebook continued to double down. It’s hard to fault them for it, in 2020, even with some very good hardware on the way from Oculus, it still isn’t clear what VR’s future looks like.

It is clear, however, that Daydream won’t be part of it.

Review: Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 is outstanding

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Europe eyeing limits on how big tech can use data and bundle apps — reports

European lawmakers are considering new rules for Internet giants that could include forcing them to share data with smaller rivals and/or put narrow limits on how they can use data in a bid to level the digital playing field.

Other ideas in the mix are a ban on dominant platforms favoring their own services or forcing users to sign up to a bundle of services, according to draft regulatory proposals leaked to the press.

The FT and Reuters both report seeing drafts of the forthcoming Digital Services Act (DSA) — which EU lawmakers are expected to introduce before the end of the year.

Their reports suggest there could be major restrictions on key digital infrastructure such as Apple’s iOS App Store and the Android Google Play store, as well as potentially limits on how ecommerce behemoth Amazon could use the data of merchants selling on its platform — something the Commission is already investigating.

A Commission spokesperson declined to confirm or deny anything in the two reports, saying it does not comment on leaks or comments by others.

“We remain committed to presenting the DSA still this year,” he added.

Per the Financial Times, the leaked draft states: “Gatekeepers shall not use data received from business users for advertising services for any other purpose other than advertising service.”

Its report suggests tech giants will be shocked by the scale of regulations coming down the pipe — noting 30 paragraphs of prohibitions or obligations — with the caveat that the proposal remains at an early stage, meaning big tech lobbyists still have everything to play for.

On bundling, lawmakers are eyeing rules that would mean dominant platforms must let users uninstall any pre-loaded apps — as well as looking at barring them from harming rivals by giving preferential treatment to their own services, according to the reports.

“Gatekeepers shall not pre-install exclusively their own applications nor require from any third party operating system developers or hardware manufacturers to pre-install exclusively gatekeepers’ own application,” per Reuters, quoting the draft it’s seen.

The Commission’s experience of antitrust complaints against Google seems likely to be a factor informing these elements — given a string of EU enforcements against the likes of Google Shopping and Android in recent years have generated headlines but failed to move the competitive needle nor satisfy complainants, even as fresh complaints about Google keep coming.

Google’s ‘no choice’ screen on Android isn’t working, says Ecosia — querying the EU’s approach to antitrust enforcement

Per Reuters the draft rules would also subject gatekeeper platforms to annual audits of their advertising metrics and reporting practices.

Platforms’ self-serving transparency remains a much complained about facet of how these giants currently operate — making efforts to hold them accountable over things like content take-down performance doomed to fuzzy failure.

The Commission’s public consultation on the DSA was launched in June — and closed on September 8.

In a lengthy response earlier this month, Google lobbied against ex ante rules for platform giants, urging regulators to instead modernise existing frameworks where any gaps are found rather than imposing tougher requirements on tech giants.

Should there be ex ante rules the adtech giant pushed lawmakers not to single out any particular business models — while also urging against an “overly simplistic” definition of ‘gatekeeper’ platforms.

Facebook has also been ploughing effort into lobbying commissioners ahead of the DSA proposal — seeking to frame the discussion in key risk areas for its business model, such as around privacy and data portability.

In May, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made time for a livestreamed debate run by a big tech-backed policy ‘think tank’ CERRE — appearing alongside Thierry Breton, the Commission VP for the internal market. The Facebook CEO warned about ‘Cambridge Analytica-style’ privacy risks if too much data portability is enforced, while the commissioner warned Facebook to pay its taxes or expect to be regulated.

More recently, Facebook’s head of global policy has sought to link European SMEs’ post-COVID-19 economic recovery prospects to Facebook’s continued exploitation of people’s data via its ad platform — tacitly warning EU lawmakers against closing down its privacy-hostile business model.

Such lobbying may be falling on deaf ears, though. Earlier this month Breton, told the FT the feeling among Brussels’ lawmakers is that platforms have got ‘too big to care’ — hence the conviction that new rules are needed to enforce higher standards.

Breton said then that lawmakers are considering a rating system to allow the public and stakeholders to assess companies’ behaviour in areas such as tax compliance and how quickly they take down illegal content.

He suggested a blacklist of activities could be applied to dominant platforms with a sliding scale of penalties for non-compliance — up to and including the separation of some operations, according to the FT’s report.

He also committed to not removing the current limited liability platforms have around content published on their platforms, saying: “The safe harbour of the liability exemption will stay. That’s something that’s accepted by everyone.”

In another signal of looming intent earlier this month, the Commission said it’s time to move beyond self-regulatory approaches to tackling problem content like disinformation — though it’s yet to flesh out its policy plan in that area. In June it also suggested it’s eyeing binding transparency requirements related to online hate speech, saying platforms’ own reporting is still too patchy.

How will EC plans to reboot rules for digital services impact startups?

Europe sets out plan to boost data reuse and regulate ‘high risk’ AIs

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