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The Fox Report Barry Fox’s technology column New tech norm W e hear a lot about the ‘new normal’ that will follow the CV lockdown. But even BC (Before Covid), the face of tech journalism was changing radically. I am old enough to remember when ‘official’ departments announced new radio, TV and telecoms licensing schemes and services at press conferences where government ministers and their technical advisers explained the tech and answered journalists’ questions. The events were often held in government buildings. Heightened risks of terrorism brought tighter security. Eventually, these were replaced by press releases with a phone or fax number to contact for ‘further information’ – which often came late and lightweight. The audio, video and telecoms manufacturers continued to hold press conferences, often tied to trade days at public exhibitions, and hosted press visits to their headquarters and labs in far-off lands. Readers must have grown weary of thinly disguised ‘thank-you letter’ articles about production lines. The end of the Hi-Fi and video boom years left audio and video companies tightening their belts, and only the consumer electronics giants and computer games and cellphone companies had money to burn on jollies for journalists. Gadget writers Meanwhile, the tabloid press – and free newspapers – were breeding a new genus of writers who describe themselves as ‘tech specialists’ but are better by-lined as ‘gadget writers’; they know nothing about how things work and ‘review’ new devices with a pretty picture, ballpark street price and a few words of off-the-shelf enthusiasm. I once went to a press event for which the host company had hired a young gadget writer as presenter. One device she showed was a USB-powered cooler. ‘Does it rely on the Peltier effect,’ we asked. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s USB.’ ‘Influencers’ In recent years the gadget pages have been overtaken by online ‘tech’ sites hosted by a new breed of commentator – the ‘influencer’. A colourful character with a pretty face enthuses over new boys’ toys, with a superficial hands-on demo after the bizarre ritual now known as ‘unboxing’. These sites are two a penny and free to view. The hosts earn money from click-through purchase links and get to keep, and privately flog off, their free product samples. The manufacturers now often stage party-style launch events with celebrity guests and no opportunity for inquiring journalists to share questions and answers in an open forum Q&A. Influencers no longer need attend unless they fancy a party, because free samples will be sent by courier to any influencer who can prove that a lot of people hit their site. The only loser is the real-world customer who has no way of learning anything of significance about performance or reliability. An old-school marketing man, who works for one of the world’s largest electronics companies, confided recently: ‘I was astonished to find that one of our marketing team is now giving a new 65-inch OLED TV, worth £3000, to anyone with 50,000 social media followers. All they have to do is post a picture of them with the set.’ Everything online I recently signed into a ‘New Influencer Ecosystem seminar’, organised by a ‘new media group’ for ‘Influencer market agencies’, which are the modern online equivalent of the advertising agencies, which traditionally placed glossy adverts in magazines. Most of the seminar speakers spouted meaningless marketing nonsense, but a couple of more honest articulates revealed how the technology now routinely built into computer equipment has been shockingly abused; facial recognition, location detection and language analysis help an influencer gather valuable personal data on ‘followers’ who ‘engage’. The tools are the same as those used to influence elections and referendums. Influencers use clickbaiting to temporarily boost their follower numbers by getting people to click on the offer of a free iPad. The CV crisis has of course put a stop to all physical press conferences and trips. Everything is now being done on line and it is hard to see how Ventilated enclosures hammfg.com/electronics/small-case/ plastic/1551v More than 5000 different enclosure styles: hammfg.com/electronics/small-case 01256 812812 sales<at>hammond-electronics.co.uk 8 Practical Electronics | August | 2020 and when there can be a return to the old norm of physical events, hands-on demonstrations, viewing and listening sessions, big trade shows and lots of air miles. It’s very likely that many manufacturers will see this as a blessed relief from the cost and effort involved in hosting live events. Sometimes, as with lockdown webinars organised by satellite company SES/Astra and the UK’s DTG (Digital Television Group), online events are useful for sharing market research and hard technical facts. For instance, the DTG cited BT’s measurement of lockdown daytime Internet traffic in the UK as averaging 5Tbps, with the infrastructure coping well with peaks of 17.5Tbps. Content-free content But other online events have presented a worrying view of the likely future. Xiaomi, the Chinese company which claims to be the third-largest smartphone producer in the world, lockdown-launched a new phone with a livestream online ‘watch party’. Ahead of the event Xiaomi claimed, ‘the same technology as the likes of Apple – for a much more affordable price’ with a ‘£179 phone to rival the £419 iPhone SE.’ A bold claim – it takes a lot more than price to get iPhone users to switch to Android. I signed up and tuned in to the Xiaomi conference on Twitter. The event turned out to be a half-hour pre-packaged promo, with a 15-minute forced wait before a few zippy presentations, some unboxing with next to no hard tech and no opportunity to ask questions and get answers. I asked to try a phone for PE, but none is yet available for us. The link may still be active at https:// bit.ly/pe-aug20-xia. If so, you can judge for yourself whether this is a good way forward for product launches, or a giant step backwards for serious journalism. The good old days I have resignedly regarded CV lockdown as Nature’s way of telling me to sort through a lifetime of paper accumulated when researching stories. Among a mass of tedious documents on topics like computer error messages, spectrum allocation, energy policy and changes to UK telephone numbering, I found a note from mid-1992. Philips took a group of journalists from all over Europe to Paris for a one-day in-andout briefing on the now-forgotten CD Interactive system that was then in the pipeline to launch. As a ‘treat’, we were taken to the then-new Disney attraction. This is the preface note I wrote to my editor in New York, verbatim: Check in at Heathrow 5.45am. The coach meeting us at de Gaulle airport fails to turn up. Go by taxi to La Defense. But no-one from Philips is at the other end to pay the taxi drivers. Find way to the roof of the Grand Arche, looking for Philips people while the taxi drivers hold passengers hostage. Find someone from Philips, and go back down again... Travel to Euro Disney by coach, but cannot leave cases and press kits etc. in coach because it is not waiting. Walk round Euro Disney carrying bags for an hour or so (time for two rides). Walk miles back to coach to the airport to find that it has left, taking two Italians to the airport and stranding 14 Brits. Find train station at Euro Disney which has one of three ticket office windows open and a queue of hundreds. No one anywhere to ask advice, so take train to Paris and, mainly by luck, get connection to de Gaulle airport. Run with bags to coach, run round de Gaulle airport and get last flight home only because take-off has been delayed by computer failure. 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