Samsung puts the Bixby before the phone, but the Galaxy S8 is basically launched already anyway. That and more in The Daily Crunch for March 20, 2017. And you know things are rough when sticking around a an Uber exec starts to look like a liability. 1. Samsung's Bixby breaks cover Samsung has revealed Bixby, its own entry into the world of virtual assistants. Bixby does not incorporate any of Viv, the AI it acquired from the founders of Siri last year, since it was too far along in development when that happened. Still, it sounds like Samsung wants its virtual assistant to do much more than the competition: the smartphone maker is insistent that it's a brand new interaction option along with touch input that can do all that you want with any app – or any app it works with, which will be a very limited bucket of pre-installed software at launch. 2. The Galaxy S8's colorways If you want the Galaxy S8 to remain somewhat of a secret ahead of its launch later this month – don't look at the internet. Leaks abound, and they've revealed pretty much everything about the forthcoming phone. Still it does like nice in these colors, which are much more muted compared to some of the flashier previous Galaxy releases. 3. Meanwhile Apple wants to augment your reality And whose reality couldn't use a little augmentation, really. The company is said to have been hard at work on AR features, including eventually dedicated AR glasses. First, though, we'll apparently see this bear fruit on the iPhone. Here's hoping it isn't Digital Touch round 2, aka a weird, quickly-forgotten gimmick. 4. YouTube's Restricted Mode prompts a non-apology apology YouTube's Restricted Mode is designed to be an age gate for protecting younger viewers, but the LGBT community thinks it's overly sensitive when it comes to representing diversity. YouTube officially says that's actually "confusion" around its purpose, but it's looking into the matter. Not exactly a strong reaction. 5. Uber's president takes off Uber president Jeff Jones is leaving the company since he's not happy with its leadership and its corporate beliefs. He's not the only one: a VP of its mapping unit also just departed. These guys really don't seem to want this on their rep, but it's also true that senior leadership likely caused the company's cultural problems, so it's interesting seeing senior leaders try to get some distance. 6. Spotify seeks some power Spotify espoused the Netflix model when it comes to music: start as a little fish eating table scraps, in the hope that you'll later become a superpower. The quiet upending hasn't happened yet, as labels still have most of the power in the relationship, but Josh outlines how that might be changing. 7. Mentors matter Romain shares a thoughtful, well-written and touching account of how he came up as a TechCrunch writer and why he's so darn good at what he does. |
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